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THE HELPERS 


BY FRANCIS LYNDE 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
BiticriSitie Cambriti0e 

1901 



COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY FRANCIS LYNDE 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



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TO THE MEN AND WOMEN OF THE 
GUILD COMPASSIONATE, 
GREETING: 


Forasmuch as it hath seemed good in the eyes of 
many to write of those things which make for the dis- 
heartening of all humankind, these things are written 
in the hope that the God-gift of loving -kindness, shared 
alike by saint and sinner, may in some poor measure 
be given its due. 


The Author, 





THE HELPERS 


CHAPTER I 

The curtain had gone down on the first act of 
the opera, and Jeffard found his hat and rose to go 
out. His place was the fourth from the aisle, and 
after an ineffectual attempt to make a passageway 
for him without rising, the two young women and 
the elderly man stood up and folded their opera 
chairs. Being driven to think pointedly of some- 
thing else, Jeffard neglected to acknowledge the 
courtesy; and the two young women balanced the 
account by discussing him after he had passed out 
of hearing. 

“ I think he might at least have said ‘ Thank 
you,’ ” protested the one in the black-plumed picture- 
hat, preening herself after the manner of ruffled 
birds and disturbed womankind. “ I ’m in love with 
your mountains, and your climate, and your end-of- 
the-century impetus, but I can’t say that I particu- 
larly admire Denver manners.” 

The clear-eyed young woman in the modest toque 
laughed joyously. 

“ Go on, Myra dear ; don’t mind me. It ’s so 
refreshing to hear an out-of -church opinion on one’s 


2 


THE HELPERS 


self. I know our manners are perfectly primitive, 
but what can you expect when every train from the 
East brings us a new lot of people to civilize? 
When you are tempted to groan over our short- 
comings it ’ll comfort you wonderfully if you will 
just stop long enough to remember that a good 
many of us are the newest of new tenderfoots.” 

“ Tenderfoots ! What an expression ! ” 

“ It ’s good English, though we did use to say 
‘ tenderfeet ’ before the ‘ Century Dictionary ’ set us 
right. And it calls the turn, as poppa would say.” 

She of the far-reaching plumes bent her eyebrows 
in severe deprecation. 

“ Connie, your slang is simply vicious. WiU you 
be good enough to tell me what ‘ calls the turn ’ 
means ? ” 

“ Ask poppa.” 

Appealed to by the censorious one, the elderly 
man stopped twiddling the bit of gold quartz on his 
watch-guard long enough to explain. He did it with 
a little hesitancy, picking his way among the words 
as one might handle broken glass, or the edged tools 
of an unfamiliar trade. He was a plain man, and 
he stood in considerable awe of the picture-hat and 
its wearer. When he had finished, the toque made 
honorable amends. 

“ I beg your pardon, Myra. HeaUy, I did n’t 
know it had anything to do with gambling. But 
to go back to our manners : I ’U give you the 
ponies and the phaeton if I don’t convince you that 
the absent-minded gentleman on our left here is 


THE HELPERS 


3 


the tenderest of tenderfoots — most probably from 
Philadelphia, too,” she added, in mischievous after- 
thought. 

“ You would n’t dare ! ” 

“ You think not ? Just wait and you ’ll see. 
Oh, cousin mine, you ’ve a lot to learn about your 
kind, yet. If you stay out here six months or a 
year, you will begin to think your philosophy has n’t 
been half dreamful enough.” 

“How absurd you are, Constance. If I didn’t 
know you to be ” — 

“Wait a minute; let me start you off right: 
good, and sensible, and modest, and unassuming, 
and dutiful, and brimful of fads ” — she checked 
the attributes off on her fingers. “ You see I have 
them all by heart.” 

The little cloud of dust puffing from beneath the 
drop-curtain began to subside, and the thumping 
and rumbling on the stage died away what time the 
musicians were clambering back to their places in 
the orchestra. Miss Van Vetter swept the aisles 
and the standing-room with her opera-glass. 

“ You will not have a chance to prove it, Connie. 
He is n’t coming back.” 

“ Don’t you believe it. I am quite sure he is a 
gentleman who always gets the worth of his money.” 

“ What makes you say that ? ” 

“ Oh, I don’t know ; intuition, I suppose. That ’s 
what they call it in a woman, though I think it 
would be called good judgment in a man.” 

Taking him at his worst. Miss Elliott’s terse 


4 


THE HELPERS 


characterization of Henry Jeffard was not alto- 
gether inaccurate, though, in the present instance, 
he would not have gone back to the theatre if he 
had known what else to do with himself. Indeed, 
he was minded not to go back, but a turn in the 
open air made him think better of it, and he 
stroUed in as the curtain was rising. Whereupon 
the elderly man and the two young women had to 
stand again while he edged past them to his chair. 

This time he remembered, and said something 
about being sorry to trouble them. Miss Elliott’s 
chair was next to his, and she smiled and nodded 
reassuringly. Jeffard was moody and disheartened, 
and the nod and the smile went near to the better 
part of him. He kept his seat during the next in- 
termission, and ventured a civil commonplace about 
the opera. The young woman replied in kind, and 
the wheel thus set in motion soon rolled away from 
the beaten track of trivialities into a path leading 
straight to the fulfillment of Miss Elliott’s promise 
to her cousin. 

“ Then you have n’t been long in Denver,” she 
hazarded on the strength of a remark which be- 
trayed his unfamiliarity with Colorado. 

“ Only a few weeks.” 

“ And you like it ? Every one does, you know.” 

Jeffard tried to look decorously acquiescent and 
made a failure of it. 

“ I suppose I ought to be polite and say yes ; but 
for once in a way, I ’m going to be sincere and say 


THE HELPERS 


6 


“ You surprise me ! I thought everybody, and 
especially new-comers, liked Denver ; enthusiastically 
at first, and rather more than less afterward.” 

“ Perhaps I am the exception,” he suggested, 
willing to concede something. “ I fancy it depends 
very much upon the point of view. To be brutally 
frank about it, I came here — like some few hun- 
dreds of others, I presume — to make my fortune ; 
and I think I would better have stayed at home. I 
seem to have arrived a decade or two after the fact.” 

The young woman never swerved from her inten- 
tion by a hair’s-breadth. 

“ Yes ? ” she queried. “ It ’s too true that these 
are not the palmy days of the ‘ Matchless ’ and the 
‘ Little Pittsburg,’ notwithstanding Creede and 
Cripple Creek. And yet it would seem that even 
now our Colorado is a fairer field for ambition and 
energy than ” — 

She paused, and Jeffard, with an unanalyzed im- 
pression that it was both very singular and very 
pleasant to be talking thus freely with a self-con- 
tained young woman whose serenity was apparently 
undisturbed by any notions of conventionality, said, 
“ Than a city of the fifth class in New England, let 
us say. Yes, I concede that, if you include ambi- 
tion ; but when it comes to a plain question of earn- 
ing a living ” — 

“ Oh, as to that,” she rejoined, quite willing to 
argue with him now that her point was gained, “ if 
it is merely a question of getting enough to eat and 
drink I suppose that can be answered anywhere. 


6 


THE HELPERS 


Even the Utes managed to answer it here before 
the Government began feeding them.” 

He regarded her curiously, trying to determine 
her social point of view by the many little outward 
signs of prosperity which tasteful simplicity, unham- 
pered by a lean purse, may exhibit. 

“ I wonder if you know anything at all about it,” 
he said, half musingly. 

“ About getting something to eat ? ” Her laugh 
was a ripple of pure joy that had the tonic of the 
altitudes in it. “I dare say I don’t — not in any 
practical way; though I do go about among our 
poor people. That is what makes me uncharitable. 
I can’t help knowing why so many people have to 
go hungry.” 

Jeffard winced as if the uncharity had a personal 
application. 

“We were speaking of fortunes,” he corrected, 
calmly ignoring the fact that his own remark had 
brought up the question of the struggle for exist- 
ence. “ I think my own case is a fair example of 
what comes of chasing ambitious phantoms. I gave 
up a modest certainty at home to come here, and ” — 
The musicians were taking their places again, and he 
stopped abruptly. 

“ And now ? ” The words uttered themselves, and 
she was sorry for them when they were beyond 
recall. 

His gesture was expressive of disgust, but there 
was no resentment in his reply. 

“ That was some time ago, as I have intimated ; 


THE HELPERS 


7 


and I am still here and beginning to wish very 
heartily that I had never come. I presume you can 
infer the rest.” 

The leader lifted his baton, and the curtain rose 
on the third act of the opera. At the same moment 
the curtain of unacquaintance, drawn aside a hand’s- 
breadth by the young woman’s curiosity, fell be- 
tween these two who knew not so much as each 
other’s names, and who assumed — if either of 
them thought anything about it — that the wave of 
chance which had tossed them together would pre- 
sently sweep them apart again. 

After the opera the ebbing tide of humanity did 
so separate them; but when the man had melted 
into the crowd in the foyer, the young woman had a 
curious little thrill of regret ; a twinge of remorse 
born of the recollection that she had made him open 
the book of his life to a stranger for the satisfying 
of a mere whim of curiosity. 

Miss Van Vetter was ominously silent on the way 
home, but she made it a point of conscience to go 
to Constance’s room before her cousin had gone to 
bed. 

“ Connie Elliott,” she began, “ you deserve to be 
shaken ! How did you dare to talk with that young 
man without knowing the first syllable about him ? ” 

Constance sat down on the edge of the bed and 
laughed till the tears came. 

“ Oh, Myra dear,” she gasped, “ it ’s worth any 
amount of disgrace to see you ruffle your feathers 
so beautifully. Don’t you see that I talked to him 


8 


THE HELPERS 


just because I did n’t know any of the syllables ? 
And he told me a lot of them.” 

“ I should think he did. I suppose he will caU 
on you next.” 

Connie the unconventional became Miss Elliott 
in the smallest appreciable lapse of time. “ Indeed, 
he will not. He knows better than to do that, even 
if he is a ten — ” 

But Miss Van Vetter was gone. 


CHAPTER II 


When Jeffard left the theatre he went to his 
room; but not directly. He made a detour of a 
few squares which took him down Sixteenth Street 
to Larimer, and so on around to his lodging, which 
was in the neighborhood of the St. James hotel. 

After the manner of those whose goings and com- 
ings have reached the accusative point, he took the 
trouble to assure himself that the burning of a cigar 
in the open air was the excuse for the roundabout 
walk; but the real reason showed its head for a 
moment or two when he slackened his pace at one 
point in the circuit and glanced furtively up at a 
row of carefully shaded windows in the second story 
of a building on the opposite side of the street. 

The lower part of the building was dark and de- 
serted ; but in the alley there was a small hallway 
screened by a pair of swing doors with glass eyes 
in them, and at the end of the hallway a carpeted 
stair leading up to the lighted room above. It was 
to keep from climbing this stair that Jeffard had 
gone to the theatre earlier in the evening. 

Opposite the alley he stopped and made as if he 
would cross the street, but the impulse seemed to 
expend itself in the moment of hesitation, and he 
went on again, slowly, as one to whom dubiety has 


10 


THE HELPERS 


lent its leaden-soled shoes. Keaching his room he 
lighted the gas and dropped into a chair, his hands • 
deep-buried in his pockets, and a look of something 
like desperation in his eyes. 

The suggestive outline of his Western experience 
sketched between the acts of the opera for the 
young woman with the reassuring smile was made 
up of half-truths, as such confidences are wont to 
be. It was true that he had come to Colorado to 
seek his fortune, and that thus far the quest had 
been bootless. But it was also true that he had 
begun by persuading himself that he must first 
study his environment; and that the curriculum 
which he had chosen was comprehensive, exhaust- 
ive, and costly enough to speedily absorb the few 
thousand dollars which were to have been his lure 
for success. 

His walk in life hitherto had been decently irre- 
proachable, hedged in on either hand by such good 
habits as may be formed by the attrition of a moral 
community ; but since these were more the attri- 
butes of time and place than of the man, and were 
unconsciously left behind in the leave-takings, a 
species of msanity, known only to those who have 
habitually worn the harness of self-restraint, had 
come upon him in the new environment. At first 
it had been but a vagrant impulse, and as such he 
had suffered it to put a bandage on the eyes of rea- 
son. Later, when he would fain have removed the 
bandage, he found it tied in a hard knot. 

For the hundredth time within a month he was 


THE HELPERS 


11 


once more tugging at the knot. To give himself 
the benefit of an object-lesson, he turned his pockets 
inside out, throwing together a small heap of loose 
silver and crumpled bank-notes on the table. After 
which he made a deliberate accounting, smoothing 
the creases out of the bills, and building an accu- 
rate little pillar with the coins. The exact sum 
ascertained, he sat back and regarded the money 
reflectively. 

“ Ninety-five dollars and forty-five cents. That ’s 
what there is left out of the nest-egg ; and I ’ve 
been here rather less than four months. At that 
rate I ’ve averaged, let me see ” — he knitted his 
brows and made an approximate calculation — “ say, 
fifty dollars a day. Consequently, the mill will run 
out of grist in less than two days, or it would if the 
law of averages held good — which it does n’t, in 
this case. Taking the last fortnight as a basis, I ’m 
capitalized for just about one hour longer.” 

He looked at his watch and got up wearily. 
“ It ’s Kismet,” he mused. “ I might as well take 
my hour now, and be done with it.” Whereupon 
he rolled the money into a compact little bundle, 
turned off the gas, and felt his way down the dark 
stair to the street. 

At the corner he ran against a stalwart young 
fellow, gloved and overcoated, and carrying a valise. 

“ Why, hello, Jeffard, old man,” said the traveler 
heartily, stopping to shake hands. “ Doing time on 
the street at midnight, as usual, are n’t you ? When 
do you ever catch up on your sleep ? ” 


12 


THE HELPERS 


Jeffard’s laugh was perfunctory. “ I don’t have 
much to do but eat and sleep,” he replied. “ Have 
you been somewhere ? ” 

“ Yes ; just got down from the mine — train was 
late. Same old story with you, I suppose ? Have n’t 
found the barrel of money rolling up hill yet ? ” 

Jeffard shook his head. 

“ Jeff, you ’re an ass — that ’s what you are ; a 
humpbacked burro of the Saguache, at that ! You 
come out here in the morning of a bad year with a 
piece of sheepskin in your grip, and the Lord knows 
what little pickings of civil engineering in your 
head, and camp down in Denver expecting your 
lucky day to come along and slap you in the face. 
Why don’t you come up on the range and take hold 
with your hands ? ” 

“ Perhaps I ’ll have to before I get through,” 
Jeffard admitted ; and then : “ Don’t abuse me to- 
night, Bartrow. I ’ve about all I can carry.” 

The stalwart one put his free arm about his 
friend and swung him around to the light. 

“ And that is n’t the worst of it,” he went on, 
ignoring Jeffard’s protest. “ You ’ve been monkey- 
ing with the fire and getting your fingers burned ; 
and, as a matter of course, making ducks and 
drakes of your little stake. Drop it all, Jeffard, 
and come across to the St. James and smoke a cigar 
with me.” 

“ I can’t to-night, Bartrow. I ’m in a blue funk, 
and I ’ve got to walk it off.” 

“ Blue nothing ! You ’ll walk about two blocks. 


THE HELPERS 


13 


more or less, and then you 11 pull up a chair and 
proceed to burn your fingers some more. Oh, I 
know the symptoms like a book.’’ 

Jeffard summoned his dignity, and found some 
few shreds and patches of it left. “ Bartrow, there 
is such a thing as overdrawing one’s account with a 
friend,” he returned stiffly. “ I don’t want to quar- 
rel with you. Good-night.” 

Three minutes later the goggle-eyed swing doors 
opened and enguKed him. At the top of the car- 
peted stair he met a hard-faced man who was dou- 
bling a thick sheaf of bank-notes into portable shape. 
The outgoer nodded, and tapped the roll signifi- 
cantly. “ Go in and break ’em,” he rasped. “ The 
bank ’s out o’ luck to-night, and it ’s our rake-off. 
I win aU I can stand.” 

Jeffard pushed through another swing door and 
went to the faro-table. Counting his money he 
dropped the odd change back into his pocket and 
handed the biUs to the banker. 

“Ninety-five?” queried the man; and when Jef- 
fard nodded, he pushed the requisite number of 
blue, red, and white counters across the table. Jef- 
fard arranged them in a symmetrical row in front of 
him, and began to play with the singleness of pur- 
pose which is the characteristic of that particular 
form of dementia. 

It was the old story with the usual variations. 
He lost, won, and then lost again until he could 
reckon his counters by units. After which the tide 
turned once more, and the roar of its flood dinned in 


14 


THE HELPERS 


Ms ears like the drumming of a tornado in a forest. 
His capital grew by leaps and bounds, doubling, 
trebling, and finally quadrupling the sum he had 
handed the banker. Then his hands began to 
shake, and the man on his right paused in his own 
play long enough to say, “ Now ’s yer time to cash 
in, pardner. Yer nerve ’s a-flickerin’.” 

The prudent advice fell upon deaf ears. J effard’s 
soul was Berserk in the fierce battle with chance, 
and he began placing the counters upon certain of 
the inlaid cards before Mm, stopping only when he 
had staked his last dollar. Five minutes afterward 
he was standing on the sidewalk again, drawing in 
deep breaths of the keen morning air, and wonder- 
ing if it were only the possession of the thing called 
money that kept one’s head from buzzing ordinarily. 
In the midst of the unspoken query the shuffling 
figure of a night tramp sidled up to him, and he 
heard imperfectly the stereotyped appeal. 

“ Hungry, you say ? Perhaps I ’ll be that, my- 
self, before long. Here you are.” 

The odd change jingled into the outstretched 
palm of the vagrant, and for the first time in a 
fairly industrious life Jeffard knew what it felt like 
to be quite without money. 

“ That is, I think I do, but I don’t,” he mused, 
walking slowly in the direction of his room. “ It 
is n’t breakfast-time yet ; and by the same token, 
it is n’t going to be for a good wMle. I believe I 
can sleep the clock around, now that I ’ve reached 
the bottom.” 


CHAPTER III 


When one has sown the wind, and the whirlwind 
harvest is begun, it is easy to imagine that the first 
few strokes of the sickle have gathered in all the 
bitterness there is in the crop. Some such illusory 
assiunption lent itself to Jeffard’s mood when he 
assured himself that he had finally reached the bot- 
tom; but the light of a new day, and a habit of 
early rising which was not to be broken at such 
short notice, brought a clearer perspective. 

In lieu of breakfast he walked up one street and 
down another, carefully avoiding the vicinity of the 
St. James for fear Bartrow might offer him hospi- 
tality, and dodging the haunts of his few acquaint- 
ances in the downtown thorouglifares for the same 
reason. This drove him to the residence district; 
and out in Colfax Avenue he met the elderly man 
whom he had taken to be the father of the young 
woman with the kindly nod and smile. 

Seeing him in daylight, J effard recognized a 
familiar figure of the Mining Exchange and the 
brokers’ offices, and thought it not unlikely that he 
might presently stumble upon the home of the 
young woman. He found it a square or two farther 
out, identifying it by a glimpse of the young woman 
herself, who was on the veranda, looping up the ten- 
drils of a climbing rose. 


I 


16 


THE HELPERS 


At sight of her Jeffard forgot his penalties for 
the moment, and the early morning sunshine seemed 
to take on a kindlier glow. She was standing on 
the arm of a clumsy veranda-chair, trying vainly to 
reach the higher branches of the rose, and Jeffard 
remarked that she was small almost to girlishness. 
But the suggestion of immaturity paused with her 
stature. The rounded arms discovered by the loose 
sleeves of her belted house-gown ; the firm, full out- 
line of her figure ; the crowning glory of red-brown 
hair with the heart of the sunlight in it ; the self- 
contained poise on the arm of the great chair ; these 
were all womanly, and the glimpse stirred the waters 
of a neglected pool in Jeftard’s past as he went on 
his aimless way along the avenue. 

There was a closely written leaf in the book of 
memory which he had sought to tear out and de- 
stroy ; but the sight of the graceful figure poised on 
the arm of the big chair opened the record at the 
forbidden page, and the imagined personality of the 
sweet-faced young woman with the red-brown hair 
and sympathetic eyes set itseK antithetically over 
against the self-seeking ambition of the girl who had 
written her own epitaph in the book of his remem- 
brance. He gave place to the sharply defined con- 
trast for a time, indulging it as one who plunges not 
unwillingly into the past for the sake of escaping 
the present, and banishing it only when his shorten- 
ing shadow gave token that the chance of a break- 
fast invitation was no longer to be apprehended. 

But when he turned his face cityward it was with 


THE HELPERS 


17 


a conscious avoidance of the route which would lead 
him past the house with a climbing rose on one of 
its veranda pillars. For what had a man to whom 
the proletary’s highway was already opening up its 
cheerless vista to do with love, and dalliance, and 
heaven-suggestive pictures of domestic beatitude ? 

Once more in Sixteenth Street, the moneyless 
reality thrust itself upon him with renewed insist- 
ence, and he turned a corner abruptly to escape an 
acquaintance who was crossing the street. The 
shame of it was too new to strike hands with dissim- 
ulation as yet, and companionship was least of all 
things to be desired. If he could but win back to 
his room unaccosted and lock himself in until the 
sharpness of hunger should have exorcised the devil 
of humiliation, he might hope to be able to face an 
accusing world with such equanimity as may be born 
of desperation. 

But fate willed otherwise. As he was passing a 
deep-set doorway giving on the sidewalk, a friendly 
arm shot out and barred the way. Jeffard looked 
up with an unspoken malediction on his tongue. It 
was Bartrow. In his haste to gain his lodging the 
shamed one had forgotten the proximity of the St. 
James hotel. 

“ You ’re a chump ! ” declared the broad-shoul- 
dered young miner, backing J effard against the wall 
and pinning him fast with one finger. “You ’re no 
man’s man, and you ’re not fit to live in a man’s 
town. Why did n’t you come around to breakfast 
this morning, like decent people ? ” 


18 


THE HELPERS 


“ I ’m not boarding at the St. James now.” Jef- 
fard tried to say it naturally, but the evasion was 
palpable enough. 

“ What of that ? Could n’t you afford to be socia- 
ble once in a way ? ” 

Jeffard prevaricated, and since he was but a 
clumsy liar, contrived to fall into a snare of his own 
setting. 

“ I was up too early for you, I guess. When I 
came by, the clerk told me you were n’t down yet.” 

Bartrow shook his head and appeared to be much 
moved. 

“ What an abnormal har that clerk must be,” he 
commented reflectively. “ I asked him five minutes 
ago if any one had inquired for me, and he said no.” 

Jeffard hung his head and would have tried to 
break away ; but Bartrow locked arms with him and 
dragged him whither he would. 

“ I ’ll forgive you this time,” he went on, laugh- 
ing at Jeffard’s discomfiture. “ 1 suppose you had 
your reasons for dodging, and while it ’s ten to one 
they were no good, that leaves one chance in your 
favor. Have a smoke ? ” 

Now Jeffard’s poverty-pride was fire-new as yet, 
and though the smell of Bartrow’ s cigar made him 
faint with desire, he refused the gift. 

“ Have n’t quit, have you ? ” Bartrow demanded. 

“ No — yes ; that is, I have for the present. 
I ’m not feeling very well this morning.” 

“ You look it ; every inch of it. Let ’s go around 
and see what the money people are doing. Maybe 
that ’ll chirk you up a bit.” 


THE HELPERS 


19 


Jeffard yielded, partly because Bartrow’s impetus 
was always of the irresistible sort, and partly be- 
cause he could think of no plausible objection on the 
spur of the moment. Bartrow talked cheerily all the 
way around to the Mining Exchange, telling of his 
claims and prospects in Chaffee County, and warm- 
ing to his subject as only a seasoned Coloradoan can 
when the talk is of “ mineral” and mining. Jeffard, 
being hungry, and sick with a fierce longing for 
tobacco, said little, and was duly thankful that Bar- 
trow required no more than a word now and then 
to keep him going. None the less he watched nar- 
rowly for a chance to escape, and was visibly de- 
pressed when none offered. 

In the crowded Exchange the poverty-pride began 
to lose the fine keenness of its edge. The atmo- 
sphere of the room was pungent with cigar smoke, 
and the tobacco craving rose up in its might and 
smote down Jeffard’s self-respect. 

“ If you ’U excuse me a minute, Dick, I believe I ’U 
go out and get a cigar as a measure of self-defense,” 
he said ; and Bartrow supplied his need, as a matter 
of course. It was a shameful subterfuge, and he 
loathed himseff for having descended to it. Never- 
theless, he took the cigar which Bartrow made haste 
to offer, and lighted it. The first few whiffs made 
him dizzy, but afterward he was better company for 
the enthusiast. 

While they were talking, the elderly man with 
the bit of quartz on his watch-chain came in, and 
Jeffard inquired if Bartrow knew him. 


20 


THE HELPERS 


“ Know Steve Elliott ? I should say I do. 
Everybody knows him, barring now and then a ten- 
derfoot like yourself. Besides being one of the 
most lovable old infants on top of earth, he ’s one of 
Denver’s picturesques. That old man has had more 
ups and downs than any three men in Colorado ; and 
that ’s saying a good deal.” 

“ In what way ? ” 

“ Oh, every way. He ’s a Fifty-niner, to begin 
with ; came across the plains in a bull-train to hunt 
for mineral. He found it — Steve would find it if 
anybody could — but some sharp rascal euchred 
him out of it, and he ’s been finding it and losing it 
at regular intervals ever since.” 

J effard blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling, 
and took in the outward presentment of the pioneer 
in an appraisive eye-sweep. “ This is one of the 
finding intervals, I take it.” 

“ Sure. He ’s on top just now, — rather more 
so than usual, I believe, — but the ‘ pioneer’s luck ’ 
will catch him again some day, and just as likely as 
not he ’ll be hustling around for a grub-stake.” 

“Man of family?” queried Jeffard. 

“ Yes, if a daughter ’s a family. His wife died 
in one of the lean years a long time ago. But say, 
Jeffard, you ought to know the daughter. She ’s as 
pretty as a peach, and as bright as a new nickel. 
She’s had her share of the ups and downs, and 
they ’ve made a queer little medley of her. Trap 
and tandem and a big house on Capitol Hill one 
month, and as hke as not two rooms in a block and 


THE HELPERS 


21 


a ride in the street-cars the next. That’s about 
the way Connie Elliott ’s had it all her life, and it ’s 
made her as wide awake as a frosty morning, and 
as good as a Sister of Charity.” 

“ I can believe all that,” Jeffard admitted, meam 
ing more than he said. 

“ Yes, you ’re safe in believing all the good things 
you hear about Steve Elliott and his daughter. 
They ’re good people. By the way, why can’t you 
come up to the house with me some evening and 
get acquainted? They’ve a Philadelphia cousin 
staying with them now, and you might compare 
notes on the ‘ wild and woolly ’ with her.” 

Jeffard had a string of excuses ready, ending 
with, “ Besides, there are particular reasons why I 
don’t wish to meet Miss EUiott just now — reasons 
that I can’t explain.” 

“ Reasons be hanged ! Just you stand still a 
minute while I go get the old man and introduce 
you. You ’ll like him a whole lot.” 

Bartrow did his part, but by the time he had 
pulled Elliott out of the throng in front of the 
quotation board, Jeffard was two squares away, 
headed once more for the suburbs. This time he 
crossed the river and tramped for hours in the 
Highlands. He told himself he was killing time 
and keeping out of the way of the luncheon hour ; but 
in reality he was fighting a desperate battle with 
pride, or self-respect, or whatever it is that makes 
a man who is not a born vagrant shrink from that 
species of cannibalism which begins with the eating 
of one’s personal possessions. 


22 


THE HELPERS 


It was an unequal fight at best, since hunger was 
the besieger, but Jeffard made shift to prolong it 
until the long day of fasting was drawing to its 
close. He yielded at last, as needs must when fam- 
ine drives, but the capitulation was upon conditions, 
and his heart was soft with repentant kneadings. 
Since one must eat to live, the pride-quenching thing 
must come to pass ; but the doing of it should be 
the pivot upon which he would turn back to sanity 
and industrious thrift. The loss of his small patri- 
mony and the hard-earned savings by which it had 
been fairly doubled was shrewd upon him, but he 
told himself that the consequences of his folly must 
be set over against the experience ; that he must be 
content to begin again at the bottom, as his father 
had before him, thankful for the youth and strength 
which made such a beginning possible. 

From the preliminary survey of penitence to 
plotting out the map of good intentions is an easy 
stage, and Jeffard beguiled the long tramp townward 
by building air-castles spacious and many-storied, 
with the new resolutions for their foundations. But 
when the sidewalks of the streets were once more 
under his feet, the pride-quenching necessity urged 
itself afresh, plying the lash of shame until he was 
driven to tramp yet other squares before he could 
attain to the plunging point. 

He was passing the Albany when the climax was 
reached, and he turned aside to get a light for the 
carefully economized stump of Bartrow’s cigar before 
setting out to find a pawnshop where his pride might 


THE HELPERS 


23 


suffer least. At the cigar counter in the rotunda a 
giant in rough tweeds,, with an unshorn beard and 
the fine bronze of the grazing plains on face and 
hands, was filling his case with high-priced Cubans 
from an open box. At sight of Jeffard he dropped 
the cigar-case and roared out a mighty welcome. 

“Well, I’ll be ! Jeffard, my boy, where 

under the canopy did you drop from ? If I have n’t 
had a search-warrant out for you all day, I ’m a liar 
and the truth has shook me. Been to dinner? — 
but of course you have n’t ; or if you have, you are 
going to eat another with me right now. How ’ve 
you been? and where in Tophet have you been 
hiding out ? ” 

Jeffard smiled. “ That ’s the place — in Tophet 
and elsewhere ; but I have n’t been out of town 
since you were here last.” 

“ The devil you have n’t ! Then what did that 
muley maverick at the hotel mean when he said you 
were gone ? ” 

“ Gone from the hotel, I guess he meant. I ’ve 
been ‘ eating around,’ as we used to say back in the 
Berkshire Hills.” 

“ Have, eh? Well, you ’re going to ‘ eat around ’ 
with me to-night, savez ? I was just going to swear 
a few lines and go up and eat by myself. Come on ; 
let ’s get a move. I ’ve got a train-load of steers on 
the iron, and I ’m due to chase ’em at eight-thirty. 
But before I forget it, here ” — the big man found 
a compact little wad of bank-notes in his vest pocket 
and thrust it into Jeffard’s hand. “ I counted that 


24 


THE HELPERS 


out the next morning and meant to give it back to 
you, but the thing got away from me slick and 
clean.” 

“ Give it back to me ? ” queried Jeffard, with a 
sudden swelling of the throat that made his voice 
husky and tremulous, “ what is it ? ” 

“ Why, it ’s the hundred I borrowed of you the 
last time we took in the menagerie together. What ’s 
the matter with you ? Don’t tell me you don’t 
remember it, or I shall go kick myself around the 
block for an over-honest idiot ! ” 

Jeffard did not remember it; could but dimly 
recall the circumstances now that he was reminded 
of them. The lending had been in a moment of 
supreme excitement in the midst of a feverish attack 
of the dementia ; the loan was in celluloid counters, 
in fact, and not in legal tender at all. And having 
been made, it was swiftly lost sight of in the vary- 
ing fortunes of the sitting. /None the less, the 
return of it at the precise moment when it was most 
needed drove the thankfulness to his eyes, and the 
lights of the great rotunda swam in a misty haze 
when he thought of the humiliating thing from 
which the small Providence had saved him. 

“ Pettigrew,” he said, when he could trust himself 
to speak, “ you ’re an honest man, and that ’s the 
worst that can be said of you. I had forgotten it 
long ago. Take me in and fill me up. I ’ve been 
tramping all day, and it runs in my mind that I ’ve 
skipped a meal or two.” 


CHAPTER IV 


The dancing party at the Calmaines’ was a crush, 
as Mrs. Calmaine’s social enlargements were wont 
to be. For an hour or more the avenue had been 
a-rumble with carriages coming and going, and a 
trickling stream of bidden ones flowed steadily in- 
ward under the electric-lighted awning, which ex- 
tended the welcome of the hospitable house to the 
very curb. 

Thanks to Myra Van Vetter, whose tiring was 
always of the most leisurely, the Elliotts were fashion- 
ably late ; and the elderly man, with the hesitant 
air accentuated by the unwonted dress-coat, , had 
much ado to win through the throng in the drawing- 
rooms with his charges. His greeting to the hostess 
was sincere rather than weU-turned in its phrasing ; 
but Mrs. Cahnaine was sweetly gracious. 

‘‘So glad to see you, Stephen,” she protested; 
“the old friends can never be spared, you know.” 
She shook hands with unaffected cordiality, and her 
tactful use of the elderly man’s Christian name 
went far toward effacing the afflictive dress-coat. 
“ Miss Van Vetter, you are quite radiant to-night. 
You spoil all one’s ideals of Quaker demureness.” 

• “ Oh, Myra ’s demure enough, only you have to 
be her country cousin to find it out,” put in Connie 


26 


THE HELPERS 


maliciously; and when her father and Miss Van 
Vetter had made room for later comers, she waited 
for another word with the hostess. 

“Just a hint, before I’m submerged,” she began, 
when her opportunity came. “ I ’m unattached, and 
particularly good-natured and docile to-night. Make 
use of me just as you would of Delia or Bessie. 
You ’ve everybody here, as usual, and if I can help 
you amuse people ” — 

“ Thank you, Connie, dear ; that is very sweet of 
you. There are people here to-night who seem not 
to belong to any one. Here comes one of them 
now.’* 

Constance looked and saw a young man making 
his way toward them ; a soldierly figure, with square 
shoulders and the easy bearing of one who has lived 
much in the open ; but with a face which was rather 
thoughtful than strong, though its lines were well 
masked under a close-trimmed beard and virile 
mustaches. She recognized her unintroduced ac- 
quaintance of the theatre ; and a minute or two 
afterward, when Mrs. Calmaine would have pre- 
sented the new-comer. Miss Elliott had disappeared. 

“ Let ’s sit down here, Teddy ; this is as good a 
place as any. You poor boy ! it bores you dreadfully, 
does n’t it ? How trying it must be to be hlase at — 
shall I say twenty ? or is it twenty-one ? ” 

The dancing was two hours old, and Connie and 
the smooth-faced boy who stood for the hopes of the 
house of Calmaine were sitting out the intermissioh 
on a broad step of the main stair. 


THE HELPERS 


27 


“ Oh, I ’m youDg, but I ’ll outgrow that,” rejoined 
the youth tolerantly. “All the same, you needn’t 
bully me because you ’ve a month or two the advan- 
tage. Shall I go and get you something to eat, or 
drink?” 

“ No, thank you, Teddy ; I ’m neither hungry nor 
thirsty. But you might give .me the recipe for being 
good-natured when people make game of you.” 

“ Yes ; I think I see myself giving you points on 
that,” said the boy, with frank admiration in his eyes. 
“ I ’m not running an angel-school just at present.” 

Connie’s blush was reproachful. “You ridiculous 
boy ! ” she retorted. “ You ’ll be making love to me 
next, just the same as if we had n’t known each other 
all our lives. Do you talk that way to other girls? 
or are you only practicing on me so that you can ? ” 

Teddy Calmaine shook his head. “ There is n’t 
anybody else,” he asserted, with mock earnestness. 
“ My celestial acquaintance is too limited. When 
the goddess goes, there are no half-goddesses to take 
her place.” 

Connie sniffed sympathetically, and then laughed 
at him. “You ought to have seen me yesterday, 
when poppa brought old Jack Hawley home with 
him. Poppa and Jack were partners in the ‘ Vesta,’ 
and Mr. Hawley had n’t seen me since I was in pina- 
fores. He called me ‘little girl,’ and wanted to 
know if I went to school, and how I was getting 
along ! ” 

Young Calmaine made a dumb show of applause. 
“ O urribrce Pygmceorum ! Why was n’t I there to 


28 


THE HELPERS 


see! But you mustn’t be too hard on old Jack. 
Half the people here who don’t know you think 
you ’re an escaped schoolgirl ; I ’ve heard ’em. That ’s 
why I took pity on you and ” — 

‘‘ Teddy Calmaine, go away and find me some- 
body to talk to ; a grown man, if you please. You 
make me tired.” 

The boy got up with a quizzical grin on his 
smooth face. “I’ll do it,” he assented affably; 
“I’m no end good-natured, as you remarked a few 
minutes ago.” 

When he was gone Connie forgot him, and fell 
into a muse, with the sights and sounds of the crush 
for its motive. From her perch on the stair she 
could look down on the shifting scene in the wide 
entrance hall, and through the archway beyond she 
had a glimpse of the circling figures in the ball-room 
swaying rhythmically to the music. It was all very 
delightful and joyous, and she enjoyed it with a zest 
which was yet undulled by satiety. None the less, the 
lavishness of it oppressed her, and a vague protest, 
born of other sights and scenes sharply contrasted 
but no less familiar to the daughter of Stephen 
Elliott, began to shape itself in her heart. How 
much suffering a bare tithe of the wealth blazing 
here in jewels on fair hands and arms and necks 
would alleviate. And how many hungry mouths 
might be filled from the groaning tables in the 
supper-room. 

Miss Elliott came out of her reverie reluctantly 
at the bidding of her late companion. Teddy Cal- 


THE HELPERS 


29 


maine had obeyed her literally ; and when she turned 
he was presenting the soldierly young man with the 
pointed beard and curling mustaches. 

“ Miss Elliott, this is Mr. Jeffard. You said you 
wanted a ” — 

“ An ice, Teddy,” she cut in, with a look which 
was meant to be obliterative. “ But you need n’t 
mind it now. Will you have half a stair-step, Mr. 
JefPard?” 

She made room for him, but he was mindful of 
his obligations. 

“ Not if you will give me this waltz.” 

She glanced at her card and looked up at him 
with a smile which was half pleading and half quiz- 
zical. “ Must I ? ” 

He laughed and sat down beside her. “ There is 
no ‘ must ’ about it. I was hoping you would refuse.” 

“ Oh, thank you.” 

“ For your sake rather than my own,” he hastened 
to add. “ I am a wretched dancer.” 

“ What a damaging admission ! ” 

“ Is it ? Do you know, I had hoped you would n’t 
take that view of it.” 

“I don’t,” she admitted, quite frankly. “We 
take it seriously, as we do most of our amusements, 
but it ’s a relic of barbarism. Once, when I was a 
very little girl, my father took me to see a Ute scalp- 
dance, — without the scalps, of course, — and 
well, first impressions are apt to be lasting. I never 
see a ball-room in action without thinking of Fire-in- 
the-Snow and his capering braves.” 


30 


THE HELPERS 


Jeffard smiled at tlie conceit, but be spoke to the 
truism. 

“ I hope your first impressions of me won’t be 
lasting,” he ventured. “ I think I was more than 
usually churlish last night.” 

She glanced up quickly. “ There should be no 
‘ last night ’ for us,” she averred. 

“ Forgive me ; you are quite right. But no mat- 
ter what happens there always wiU be.” 

Her gaze lost itself among the circling figures be- 
yond the archway, and the truth of the assertion 
drove itself home with a twinge of something like 
regret. But when she turned to him again there 
was unashamed frankness in the clear gray eyes. 

“ What poor minions the conventions have made 
us,” she said. “ Let us be primitive and admit that 
our acquaintance began last night. Does that help 
you?” 

“ It wiU help me very much, if you will let me 
try to efface the first impression.” 

“ Does it need effacing ? ” 

“ I think it must. I was moody and haK despe- 
rate.” 

He stopped, and she knew that he was waiting 
for some sign of encouragement. She looked away 
again, meaning not to give it. It is one of the little 
martyrdoms of sympathetic souls to invite confi- 
dences and thereby to suffer vicariously for the 
misdoings of the erring majority, and her burdens 
in this wise were many and heavy. Why should 
she go out of her way to add to them those of this 


THE HELPERS 


31 


man who ought to be abundantly able to carry his 
own ? Thus the unspoken question, and the answer 
came close upon the heels of it. But for her own 
curiosity, — impertinence, she had begun to call it, 
— the occasion would never have arisen. 

“ I am listening,” she said, giving him his sign. 

Being permitted to speak freely, Jeffard- found 
himseK suddenly tongue-tied. “ I don’t know what 
I ought to say, — if, indeed, I ought to say anything 
at all,” he began. “ I think I gave you to un- 
derstand that the world had been using me rather 
hardly.” 

“ And if you did ? ” 

A palpitant couple, free of the waltz, came up 
the stair, and Jeffard rose to make way. When 
the breathless ones perched themselves on the land- 
ing above, he went on, standing on the step below 
her and leaning against the baluster. 

“ If I did, it was an implied untruth. It ’s a 
trite saying that the world is what we make it, and 
I am quite sure now that I have been making my 
part of it since I came to Denver. I ’m not going 
to afflict you with the formula, but I shall feel bet- 
ter for having told you that I have torn it up and 
thrown it away.” 

“ And you will write out another ? ” 

“ Beginning with to-morrow. I leave Denver in 
the morning.” 

“ You are not going back? ” She said it with a 
little tang of deprecation in the words. 

His heart warmed to the small flash of friendly 


32 


THE HELPERS 


interest, and*- he smiled and shook his head. “ No, 
that would never do — without the fortune, you 
know. I ’m going to the mountains ; with pick 
and shovel, if need be. I should have started to- 
night if I had n’t found Mrs. Calmaine’s invitation. 
She has been very good to me in a social way, and 
I could do no less than come.” He said it apolo- 
getically, as if the dip into the social pool on the eve 
of the new setting forth demanded an explanation. 

She smiled up at him. “ Does it need an apo- 
logy ? Are you sorry you came ? ” 

“ Sorry ? It ’s the one wise thing I ’ve done 
these four months. I shall always be glad — and 
thankful.” It was on his tongue to say more ; to 
dig the pit of confession stiU deeper, as one who, 
finding himself at the shrine of compassionate 
purity, would be assoilzied for aU the wrong-doings 
and follies and stumblings of a misguided past ; 
to say many things for which he had no shadow of 
warrant, and to which the self-contained young 
woman on the step before him could make no possi- 
ble rejoinder ; but the upcoming of the man whose 
name stood next on Connie’s card saved him. A 
moment later he was taking his leave. 

“Not going to break away now, are you, Jef- 
fard?” said the fortunate one, helping Connie to 
rise. 

“ Yes ; I must cut it short. I leave town in the 
morning. Miss Elliott, will you bid me God- 
speed ? ” 

She put her hand in his and said what was meet ; 


THE HELPERS 


33 


and to the man who stood beside her the parting 
appeared to be neither more nor less than conven- 
tionally formal. But when Jeifard was free of the 
house and swinging along on his way cityward, the 
spirit of it made itself a name to live ; and out of 
the God-speed and the kindly phrase of leavetaking 
the new-blown fire of good intention distilled a 
subtle liqueur of jubilance which sang in his veins 
like the true wine of rejuvenescence ; so nearly may 
the alchemy of pure womanhood transmute sound- 
ing brass, or still baser metal, into the semblance of 
virgin gold. 

So Jeffard went his way refiective, and while he 
mused the fire burned and he saw himself in his 
recent stumblings in the valley of dry bones as a 
thing apart. From the saner point of view it 
seemed incredible that he could ever have been the 
thrall of such an ignoble passion as that which had 
so lately despoiled him and sent him to tramp the 
streets like a hungry vagrant. As yet the lesson 
was but a few hours old, but the barrier it had 
thrown up between the insensate yesterday and the 
rational to-day seemed safely impassable. In the 
strength of reinstated reason, confidence returned ; , 
and close upon the heels of confidence, temerity. 
His reverie had led him past the corner where he 
should have turned westward, and when he took 
cognizance of his surroundings he was standing 
opposite the alley-way of the glass-eyed doors. He 
glanced at his watch. It was midnight. Twenty- 
four hours before, almost to the minute, he had 


34 


THE HELPERS 


been dragged irresistibly across the street and up 
the carpeted stair to the lair of the dementiardemon. 

He looked up at the carefully shaded windows, 
and a sudden desire to prove himself came upon 
him. Not once since the first hot flashes of the 
fever had begun to quicken his pulse, had he been 
able to go and look on and return scathless. But 
was he not sane now ? and was not the barrier well 
builded ? If it were not — if it stood only upon the 
lack of opportunity — 

He crossed the street and threaded the narrow 
alley, tramping steadily as one who goes into battle, 
— a battle which may be postponed, but which may 
by no means be evaded. The swing doors gave 
back under his hand, and a minute later he stood 
beside the table with the inlaid cards in its centre, 
his hands thrust deep in his pockets, and his breath 
coming in sharp little gasps. 

It was a perilous moment for any son of Adam 
who has been once bitten by the dog of avarice 
gone mad. The run of luck was against the bank, 
and the piles of counters under the hands of the 
haggard ones girdling the table grew and multi- 
plied with every turn of the cards. Jeffard’s lips 
began to twitch, and the pupils of his eyes narrowed 
to two scintillant points. Slowly, and by ahnost 
imperceptible advances, his right hand crept from 
its covert, the fingers tightly clenched upon the 
small roll of bank-notes, — the Providential wind- 
fall which must provision any future argosy of 
endeavor. 


THE HELPERS 


35 


The dealer ran the cards with monotonous pre- 
cision, his hands moving like the pieces of a nicely 
adjusted mechanism. Jeffard’s fingers unclosed and 
he stood staring down at the money in his palm as 
if the sight of it fascinated him. Then he turned 
quickly and tossed it across to the banker. “ Redij 
and whites,” he said ; and the sound of his owiv 
voice jarred upon his nerves like the rasping of files 
in a saw-pit. 

Two hours later, he was again standing on the 
narrow footway in the alley, with the swing doors 
winging to rest behind him. Two hours of frenzied 
excitement in the dubious battle with chance, and 
the day of penitence and its hopeful promise for 
the future were as if they had not been. Halfway 
across the street he turned and flung his clenched 
fist up at the shaded windows, but his tongue clave 
to his teeth and the curse turned to a groan with a 
sob at the end of it. And as he went his way, sod- 
den with weariness, the words of a long-forgotten 
allegory were ringing knell-like in his ears : — 

“ When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, 
he walketh in dry places seeking rest, and findeth 
none. Then he saith, I will return into my house 
from whence I came out; and when he is come, he 
findeth it empty and swept and garnished. Then 
goeth he and taketh with him seven other spirits 
more wicked than himself, and they enter in and 
dwell there ; and the last state of that man is worse 
than the first.” 


CHAPTER V 


It was on the day following the dancing party at 
the Calmaines’ that Constance Elliott arrayed herself 
in a modest street dress, and ran down to the library 
where Miss Van Vetter was writing letters. 

“You’d better change your mind, Myra, and 
come along with me. It ’ll do you good to see how 
the other half lives,” she said coaxingly. 

Miss Van Vetter cahnly finished her sentence be- 
fore she replied. 

“ Thank you, Connie ; but I believe not. I know 
it is the proper fad nowadays to go slumming, but I 
can’t do it ; it ’s a matter of principle with me.” 

Connie’s eyebrows arched in mild surprise. 
“ That ’s a new one,” she commented. “ I ’ve heard 
all kinds of excuses, but never that. How do you 
diagram it ? ” 

“ It is simple enough. One sees plenty of misery 
in the ordinary course of things without making a 
specialty of looking for it ; and when you ’ve done 
everything that your money and sympathy can do, 
it is only a single drop in the great ocean of human 
wretchedness, after all. More than that, you have 
added to the sum total of the world’s suffering by 
just so much as the miseries of the others hurt you 
through your compassion.” 


THE HELPERS 


37 


“ Myra, dear, if I did n’t know that you are bet- 
ter than your theories, I should try to humble you. 
What will you do if the evil day ever comes to 
you?” 

“ Unload my woes upon some such angelic and 
charitable sister of mercy as you are, I suppose,” 
rejoined Miss Van Vetter complacently. “ But that 
does n’t make it necessary for me to go about and 
shed literal tears with those who weep, now. I pre- 
fer to do it by proxy.” She took a gold piece from 
her purse and offered it to Constance. “ Take this, 
and make some poor wretch comfortable for ten or 
fifteen minutes on my account.” 

Miss Elliott was not yet canonized, and she re- 
fused the contribution with an indignant little stamp 
of her foot. “ Myra Van Vetter, you ’re worse than 
a heathen ! I would n’t touch your money with the 
tip of my finger ; I ’d be afraid it would burn me. 
I hope you ’ll learn for yourself some day what the 
cold shoulder of charity is — there ! ” And she 
swept out of the room with as much dignity as five- 
feet-one-and-a-half may compass upon extraordinary 
occasions. 

Once on the other side of the library door, she 
laughed softly to herself and was instantly Connie 
the serene again. 

“ It does me a whole lot of good to boil over once in 
a while,” she said, going out on the veranda. “ Myra 
serves one beneficent end in the cosmogony in spite 
of herself : she ’s a perfect safety-valve for me. 
Tommie-e-e-e ! O Tom ! Are you out there ? ” 


38 


THE HELPERS 


A ragged boy, sitting on the curb and shaking 
dice with a pair of pebbles, sprang up and ran to 
the gate. When the latch baffled him, as it usually 
did from the outside, he vaulted the fence and stood 
before her. 

“ Prompt as usual, are n’t you, Tommie ? ” 

“ Ain’t got nothin’ else to do but to be promp’. 
Is it a baskit, dis time, ’r wot ? ” 

“ It ’s a basket, and you ’ll find it in the kitchen.” 

Five minutes later the dwellers in the avenue 
might have seen a small procession headed town- 
wards. Its component parts were a dainty little 
lady, walking very straight with her hands in the 
pockets of her jacket, and a ragged urchin bent side- 
wise against the weight of a capacious basket. 

The street-car line was convenient, but Constance 
walked in deference to Tommie’s convictions, — 
he objected to the car on the score of economy. 
“Wot’s the use o’ givin’ a bloated corp’ration a 
nickel w’en a feUer can mog along on his feets ? ” 
he had demanded, one day ; and thereafter they 
walked. 

What profits it to set down in measured phrase at 
what numbers in what streets the basket cover was 
lifted that afternoon ? Doubtless, in that great day 
when the books shall be opened, it will be found 
that a faithfid record has been kept, not only of the 
tumbler of jelly left with bedridden Mother M’Gar- 
rihan, the bottle of wine put into the hands of gaunt 
Tom Devins, who was slowly dying of lead-poison- 
ing, and the more substantial viands spread out 


THE HELPERS 


39 


before the hungry children in drunken Owen David’s 
shanty, but of all the other deeds of mercy that left 
a trail of thankful benisons in the wake of the small 
procession. Be it sufficient to say that the round 
was a long one, and that Constance spared neither 
herself nor her father’s bank-account where she 
found misery with uplifted hands. 

The basket had grown appreciably lighter, and 
Tommie’s body was once more approaching the per- 
pendicular, when the procession paused before an 
unswept stairway leading to the second story of a 
building fronting on one of the lower cross streets. 
Constance held out her hand for the basket, but the 
boy put it behind him. 

“ Wot ’s the matter with me ? ” he demanded. 

“ Nothing at all, Tommie. I only meant to save 
you a climb. The basket is n’t heavy now, you 
know.” 

“ S’posin’ it ain’t ; ain’t I hired to run this end 
o’ the show ? You jes’ tell me where you want it 
put, an’ that ’s right where I ’m goin’ to put it, an’ 
not nowheres else.” 

She smiled and let him lead the way up the dusty 
stair. At a certain door near the end of the long 
upper corridor she signed to him to give her the 
basket. “ Go to the head of the stairs and wait,” 
she whispered. “ I may want you.” 

When he was out of hearing she tapped on the 
door and went in. It was the interior of all others 
that made Constance want to cry. There was a 
sufficiency of garish furniture and tawdry knick- 


40 


THE HELPERS 


knacks scattered about to show that it was not the 
dwelling-place of the desperately j)oor; but these 
were only the accessories to the picture of desolation 
and utter neglect having for its central figure the 
woman stretched out upon the bed. She was asleep, 
and her face was turned toward the light which 
struggled feebly through the unwashed window. 
Beauty there had been, and might be again, but not 
even the flush of health would efface the marks of 
Margaret Gannon’s latest plunge into the chilling 
depths of human indifference. Connie tiptoed to 
the bedside and looked, and her heart swelled within 
her. 

It had fallen out in this wise. On the Monday 
night Mademoiselle Angeline — known to her in- 
timates as Mag Gannon — saw fuzzy little circles 
expand and contract around the gas-jets in the 
Bijou Theatre while she was walking through her 
part in the farce. Tuesday night the fuzzy circles 
became blurs ; and the stage manager swore audibly 
when she faltered and missed the step in her spe- 
cialty. On the Wednesday Mademoiselle Angeline 
disappeared from the Bijou altogether; and for 
three days she had lain helpless and suffering, see- 
ing no human face until Constance came and minis- 
tered to her. And the pity of it was that while the 
fever wrought its torturous will upon her, delirium 
would not come to help her to forget that she was 
forgotten. 

Constance had pieced out the pitiful story by frag- 
ments while she was di’agging the woman back from 


THE HELPERS 


41 


the brink of the pit ; and when all was said, she 
began to understand that a sick soul demands other 
remedies than drugs and dainties. Just what they 
were, or how they were to be applied, was another 
matter; but Constance grappled with the problem 
as ardently as if no one had ever before attacked 
it. In her later visits she always brought the con- 
versation around to Margaret’s future ; and on the 
afternoon of the basket-procession, after she had 
made her patient eat and drink, she essayed once 
again to enlist the woman’s wiU in her own behalf. 

“ It ’s no use of me trying. Miss Constance ; I ’ve 
got to go back when I ’m fit. There ain’t nothing 
else for the likes of me to do.” 

“ How can you tell till you try ? O Margaret, I 
wish you would try ! ” 

A smile of hard-earned wisdom flitted across the 
face of the woman. “ You know more than most 
of ’em,” she said, “ but you don’t know it aU. You 
can’t, you see ; you ’re so good the world puts on its 
gloves before it touches you. But for the likes of 
me, we get the bare hand, and we ’re playing in luck 
if it ain’t made into a fist.” 

“ You poor girl ! It makes my heart ache to 
think what you must have gone through before you 
could learn to say a thing like that. But you must 
try ; I can’t let you go back to that awful place after 
what you ’ve told me about it.” 

“ Supposing I did try ; there ’s only the one thing 
on earth I know how to do, — that’s trim hats. 
Suppose you run your pretty feet off till you found 


42 


THE HELPERS 


me a place where I could work right. How long 
would it be before somebody would go to the missis, 
or the boss, or whoever it might be, and say, ‘ See 
here ; you ’ve got one of Pete Grim’s Bijou women 
in there. That won’t do.’ And the night after, 
I ’d be doing my specialty again, if I was that lucky 
to get on.” 

“ But you could learn to do housework, or some- 
thing of that kind, so you could keep out of the way 
of people who would remember you. You must 
have had some experience.” 

The invalid rocked her head on the pillow. 
“ That ’d be worse than the other. Somebody ’d be 
dead sure to find out and tell; and then I’d be 
lucky if I got off without going to jail. And for 
the experience, — a minute ago you called me a girl, 
but I know you did n’t mean it. How old do you 
think I am ? ” 

Constance looked at the fever-burned face, and 
tried to make allowances for the ravages of disease. 
“ I should say twenty-five,” she replied, “ only you 
talk as if you might be older.” 

“ I ’ll be eighteen next J une, if I ’d happen to live 
that long,” said Margaret; and Constance went 
home a few minutes later with a new pain in her 
heart, born of the simple statement. 

At the gate she took the empty basket and paid 
the boy. “ That ’s all for to-day, but I want to give 
you some more work,” she said. “ Every morning, 
and every noon, and every night, until I tell you to 
stop, I want you to go up to that last place and ask 


THE HELPERS 


43 


Margaret Gannon if there is anything you can do 
for her. And if she says yes, you do it ; and if it ’s 
too big for you to do, you come right up here after 
me. Will you do all that ? ” 

“ Will I ? Will a yaller dorg eat his supper w’en 
he’s hungry? You’re jes’ dead right I’ll doit. 
An’ I ’ll be yere to-morrer afternoon, promp’.” 

All of which was well enough in its way, but the 
problem was yet unsolved, and Constance had to 
draw heavily on her reserves of cheerfulness to be 
able to make an accordant one of four when Kichard 
Bartrow called that evening after dinner. 


CHAPTER VI 


During the week following the day of repentance 
and backsliding, Jeffard’s regression down the in- 
clined plane became an accelerated rush. In that 
interval he parted with his watch and his surveying 
instruments, and made a beginning on his surplus 
clothing. It was a measure of the velocity of the 
descent that the watch, with the transit and level, 
brought him no more than seven knife-and-fork 
meals and an occasional luncheon. But the cloth- 
ing, being transmutable in smaller installments, did 
rather better. 

Before the week was out, a bachelor’s apartment 
in a respectable locality became an incongruous 
superfluity; and having by no means reached the 
philosophical level in his descent, he hid himseK 
from all comers in a dubious neighborhood below 
Larimer Street. 

The second week brought sharper misery than the 
first, since it enforced the pitiful shifts of vagrancy 
before he could acquire the spirit-breaking experi- 
ence which makes them tolerable. But before many 
days the poor remnants of pride and self-respect 
gave up the unequal struggle, leaving him to liis 
own devices ; after which he soon learned how to 
keep an open and unbalanced meal-and-cigar account 
with his few unmercenary friends. 


THE HELPERS 


45 


In a short time, however, the friendly tables began 
to grow scarce. Bartrow went back to his mine, 
and with his going the doors of the St. James’s din- 
ing-room opened no more to the proletary. Then 
came the return of John Pettigrew, whose hospitality 
was as boundless as the range whereon his herds 
grazed, and who claimed kinship with Jeffard be- 
cause both chanced to be transplanted New England- 
ers. While Pettigrew stayed in Denver, Jeffard 
lived on the fat of the land, eating at his friend’s 
table at the Albany, and gambling with the ranch- 
man’s money at odd hours of the day and night. 
But after Pettigrew left there was another lean in- 
terval, and Jeffard grew haggard and ran his weight 
down at the rate of a pound a day. 

In the midst of this came a spasm of the reform- 
ative sort, born of a passing glimpse of Stephen 
Elliott’s daughter on one of her charitable expedi- 
tions. The incident brought him face to face with a 
fact which had been unconsciously lending despera- 
tion to despair. Now that the discovery could be 
no more than an added twist of the thumbscrew, he 
began to realize that he had found in the person of 
the sweet-faced young woman with the far-seeing 
eyes the Heaven-born alchemist who could, if she so 
willed, transmute the flinty perverseness of him into 
plastic wax, shaping it after her own ideals ; that it 
was the unacknowledged beginning of love which had 
found wings for the short-lived flight of higher hopes 
and more worthy aspirations. The day of fasting 
and penitence had set his feet in the way leading to 


46 


THE HELPERS 


reinstatement in his own good opinion ; but the meet- 
ing with Constance was answerable for a worthier 
prompting, — a perfervid determination to fight his 
way back to better things for righteousness’ sake, 
knowing that no otherwise could he hope to stand 
with her on the Mount of Benediction. 

It was against this anointing of grace that he had 
sinned ; and it was in remorseful memory of it that 
he brushed his clothes, put on an ill-fitting air of 
respectability, and tramped the streets in a fruit- 
less search for employment until he was ready to 
drop from fatigue and hunger. Nothing came of it. 
The great public, and notably the employing minor- 
ity of it, is no mean physiognomist ; and the gam- 
bler carries his hall-mark no less than the profligate 
or the drunkard. 

At the close of one of these days of dishearten- 
ment, a day wherein a single cup of coffee had been 
made to stand sponsor for breakfast, luncheon, and 
dinner, Jeffard saw a familiar figure standing at the 
counter in one of the newspaper offices. Knowing 
his man, Jeffard stopped on the sidewalk and waited. 
If Lansdale had but the price of a single meal in 
his pocket, two men would share that meal that 
night. 

There were two entrances to the newspaper office, 
and Jeffard watched beagle wise lest his chance of 
breaking his fast should vanish while he tarried. 
Presently Lansdale came out, and J eff ard fell upon 
him before he could latch the door. 

“ Salaam ! J effard, my son,” said the outcomer. 


THE HELPERS 


47 


“ I saw you waiting for me. How goes the world- 
old struggle for existence ? ” 

“ Don’t remind me of it, Lansdale ; do you hap- 
pen to have the price of a meal about you ? ” 

Lansdale smiled, and gravely tuckmg Jeffard’s 
arm under his own, steered diagonally across the 
street toward the open doors of a cafe. 

“ Now that is what our forefathers called Provi- 
dence, and what we, being so much wiser in our own 
generation, call luck,” he declared. “ I had just got 
a check out of the post-office for a bit of work sent 
months ago to an editor whose name is unhasting. 
When you saw me I was closing a negotiation, by 
the terms of which the cashier of the ‘ Coloradoan ’ 
becomes my banker. Behold, now, the mysteries of 
— shall we say Providence ? At any time within 
the six months I would have sworn that the oppor- 
tune moment for the arrival of this bit of money- 
paper had come ; nevertheless Providence, and the 
slow-geared editor, get it here just in time to save 
two men from going to bed supperless. Why don’t 
you say something ? ” 

They were at the door of the cafe, and Jeffard 
gripped his companion’s arm and thrust him in. 
“ Can’t you see that I ’m too damned hungry to 
talk ? ” he demanded savagely ; and Lansdale wisely 
held his peace until the barbarian in his guest had 
been appeased. 

When the soup and fish had disappeared, Jeffard 
was ashamed of himself, and said as much. 

“ You must n’t mind what I said,” he began, by 


48 


THE HELPERS 


way of making amends. “ I used to think I was a 
civilized being, but, God help me, Lansdale, I ’m 
not ! When I ’ve gone without food for twenty-four 
hours on end, I ’m nothing more or less than a hun- 
gry savage.” 

Lansdale smiled intelligence. “ I know the taste 
of it, and it ’s bad medicine — for the soul as well 
as for the body,” he rejoined. “ There is reason to 
suspect that Shakespeare never went hungry, else 
he would n’t have said, ‘ Sweet are the uses of adver- 
sity.’ They ’re not sweet ; they ’re damnably bitter. 
A man may come forth of the winepress with bones 
unbroken and insight sharpened to the puncturing 
point ; but his capacity for evil will be increased in 
just proportion.” 

“ I don’t want to believe that,” said Jelfard, whose 
despair was not yet proof against a good meal in 
good company. 

“You needn’t, but it’s true. The necessities 
breed a certain familiarity with evil. Moral metes 
and bounds have a trick of disappearing in the day 
of physical dearth. When hunger has driven a man 
over the ethical boundary a few times, the crossing 
becomes easy ; and when hunger drops the whip, in- 
clination is very likely to take it up.” 

Jeffard laughed. “ ‘The words of Agur the son 
of Jakeh,’ ” he quoted. “I believe you’d moralize 
if you were going to be hanged, Lansdale.” 

“ Perhaps I should. What possible contingency . 
could offer better opportunities? And am I not 
going to be hanged — or choked, which amounts to 
the same thing ? ” 


THE HELPERS 


49 


Jeffard looked up quickly and saw what the myo- 
pia of hunger had hitherto obscured : that his com- 
panion’s smooth-shaven face seemed gaunter than 
usual, and that his hands were unsteady when he 
lifted the knife and fork. 

“ Colorado is n’t helping you, then,” he said. 

“ No ; but it is n’t altogether Colorado’s fault. 
The Boston medicine man said change of climate, 
plenty of outdoor indolence, nutritious food at stated 
intervals. I have all any one could ask of the first, 
and as little of either of the others as may be.” 

“ But you do good work, Lansdale. I ’ve always 
believed you could make it win, in time. Hasn’t 
the time come yet ? ” 

“ No. What I can do easiest would bring bread 
and meat, if I could sell it ; but a literary hack- 
writer has no business in Colorado — or anywhere 
else outside of the literary centres. In Boston I 
could always find an odd job of reviewing, or space- 
writing, or something that would serve to keep body 
and soul together; but here they won’t have me 
even in the newspapers.” 

“Overcrowded, I suppose, like everything else 
in this cursed country.” 

“ That ’s the alleged reason ; but the fact is that 
I’m not a journalist. Your thoroughbred news- 
paper man has more or less contempt for a fellow 
who can’t or won’t write journalese.” 

They had attained to the dessert, and the waiter 
was opening a modest bottle of claret for them. 
Jeffard turned his wineglass down. 


50 


THE HELPERS 


“ What ! . Is that the way you flout a man’s hos- 
pitality? ” demanded Lansdale, in mock displeasure. 

“ No ; I don’t mean to do that. But I ’m drunken 
with feasting now, and if I put wine into me I shall 
pawn the coat off my back before midnight for a 
stake to play with.” 

Lansdale smiled. “ I ’U see that you don’t have 
to. Turn up your glass.” 

But Jeflard was obstinate, and sat munching 
raisins while Lansdale sipped his wine. When the 
waiter brought the cigars he came out of his reverie 
to say, “ You want to live, don’t you, Lansdale ? ” 

The potential man of letters took time to think 
about it. “ I suppose I do ; else I should n’t be 
starving to death in Denver,” he admitted finally. 

“ And there is nothing but the lack of a little ready 
money that keeps jou from giving the Boston doc- 
tor’s prescription a fair trial. If I had the money 
I believe I ’d change places with you ; that is, I ’d 
give you the money in exchange for your good 
chance of being able to shuffle off mortality without 
the help of extraneous means. I think I ’ve had 
enough of it.” 

“Do you? That proves how little a man has 
learned when he thinks he has arrived. Now pull 
yourself together, and tell me what you really would 
do if you became suddenly rich.” 

“ How rich ? ” 

“ Oh, make it a comfortable figure ; say eight or 
ten thousand a month for an income.” 

“ I ’d do what I said I should, — change places 


THE HELPERS 


51 


with you ; only I suppose that would n’t be possible. 
Failing that” — He pondered over it for a mo- 
ment, balancing his fork on the edge of his plate the 
while. “ A few weeks ago I should have mapped 
out a future worth talking about. I had a lucid 
day, in which the things that make for ambition of 
the better sort had their inning. If you had asked 
me such a question then, I should doubtless have 
told you that I should try to realize the ideals of 
other days ; to walk uprightly, and to hold great 
wealth as it should be held — in trust for the good 
of one’s kind ; to win the love of the ideal woman, 
perhaps ; and, having won it, to sit at her feet until 
I had learned how to be God’s almoner.” 

Lansdale’s smile was not whoUy cynical. “But 
now ? ” he queried. 

“ But now I know my own limitations. I think 
I should go back to the old farm in the Berkshire 
Hills, and try to make it earn me bread and meat.” 

“ But you could n’t spend ten thousand a month 
on an abandoned farm, though I grant you it would 
be a pretty expensive luxury. What would you do 
with the lave of it ? ” 

Jeffard’s lips tightened, and his face was not plea- 
sant to look upon. “ I ’d let it go on accumulating, 
piling up and up till there was no shadow of possi- 
bility that I should ever again come to know what 
it means to be without money. And even then I 
should know I could never get enough,” he added. 

This time Lansdale’s smile was of incredulity. 
“Let me prophesy,” he suggested. “When your 


52 


THE HELPERS 


lucky day overtakes you, you will do none of these 
things. Jeffard the fool may be heard of wherever 
the Associated Press has a wire or a correspondent ; 
but Jeffard the miser will never exist outside of your 
own unbalanced imagination. Let ’s go out and walk. 
It ’s fervidly close in here.” 

Arm in arm they paced the streets until nearly 
midnight, talking of things practical and impracti- 
cable, and keeping well out of the present in either 
the past or the future. When Lansdale said good- 
night, he stuffed a bank-note into Jeffard’s pocket. 

“It’s only a loan,” he protested, when Jeffard 
would have made him take it back. “ And there 
are no conditions. You can go and play with it, if 
that ’s what you ’d rather do.” 

The suggestion was unfortunate, though possibly 
the result would have been the same in any event. 
Five minutes after parting from Lansdale, Jeffard 
had taken his place in the silent group around the 
table in the upper room ; and by the time the pile 
of counters under his hand had increased to double 
the amount of Lansdale’s gift, he was oblivious to 
everything save the one potent fact — that after so 
many reverses his luck had turned at last. 

Five hundred and odd dollars he had at one time 
in that eventful sitting, and his neighbor across the 
comer of the table, a grizzled miner with the jaw of 
a pugilist and eyes that had a trick of softening 
like a woman’s, had warned him by winks, nods, 
and sundry kicks under the table to stop. Jef- 
fard scowled his resentment of the interference and 


THE HELPERS 


53 


played on, losing steadily until his capital had shrunk 
to fifty dollars. Then the miner rose up in his 
place, reached across, and gave Jeffard an open- 
handed buffet that nearly knocked him out of his 
chair. 

“ Dad blame you ! ” he roared ; “ I ’ll learn you 
how to spile my play ! Stan’ up and fight it out 
like a man ! ” 

The game stopped at once. The dealer held his 
hand, and the banker reached for his revolver. 

“ You two gen’lemen cash in and get out o’ here,” 
he commanded. “ This is a gen’leman’s game, and 
we don’t run no shootin’-gallery — leastwise, not un- 
less I have to take a hand in it. Pass in your 
chips.” 

They both obeyed ; the miner with maledictory 
reluctance, and Jeffard in a tremulous frenzy of 
wrath. When they reached the sidewalk, Jeffard 
flung himseff savagely upon his assailant, only to 
learn that abstinence is a poor trainer, and that he 
was little better than a lay-figure in the grasp of the 
square-jawed one with the melting eyes. The big 
man thrust him into a corner and held him there 
until he listened to reason. 

“ You blamed idjit ! you hain’t got sense enough 
to go in when it rains ! Hold still, ’r I ’ll bump your 
head ag’inst the wall ! As I was sayin’, you don’t 
know enough to pound sand. Every single time 
I ’ve been in this dive, you ’ve been here, too, 
a-blowin’ yourself like you had a wad as big as a 
feather bed, and you know danged well you hain’t 


54 


THE HELPERS 


got nothin’. And you would n’t ’a’ kep’ a dern cent 
to-night, if I had n’t thumped you and raised a row. 
Now you go and hunt you a place to sleep while 
you ’ve got dust enough to pay for it ; and don’t you 
come rourd here ag’in till you ’ve put a whole grub- 
stake inside of you. Savez? ” 


CHAPTER VII 


From the beginning of the cannibalistic stage of 
the journey down the inclined plane, Jeffard had de- 
termined that, come what might, he would keep 
enough of his wardrobe to enable him to present an 
outward appearance of respectability. With a vague 
premonition of the not improbable end of the jour- 
ney he recoiled at the thought of figuring before a 
coroner’s jury as a common vagrant. 

This resolution, however, like all others of a pride- 
ful nature, went down before the renewed assaults 
of the allies, hunger and dementia. Whereby it 
speedily came to pass that he retained only the gar- 
ments he stood in, and these soon became shabby 
and wayworn. Since, in his own estimation, if not 
in that of others, the clothes do make the man to a 
very considerable extent, J effard gradually withdrew 
from his former lounging-places, confining himself 
to the less critical region below Larimer Street 
during the day, and avoiding as much as possible 
the haunts of his former associates at all hours. 

It was for this cause that Bartrow, on his return 
from Chalfee County, was unable to find Jeffard. 
Meeting Lansdale when the search had become 
imhopeful, the large-hearted man of the altitudes 
lamented his failure after his own peculiar fashion. 


66 


THE HELPERS 


“ When was it you saw him last ? ” he inquired 
of the transplanted Bostonian. 

“ It was about a week ago. To be exact, it was a 
week Tuesday. I remember because we dined to- 
gether that evening.” 

“ Now does n’t that beat the band ? Here I ’ve 
gone and got him a soft snap up on the range — 
good pay, and little or nothing to do — and he ’s got 
to go and drop out like a monte man’s little joker. 
It ’s enough to make a man swear continuous ! ” 

“I don’t think he would have gone with you,” 
Lansdale ventured. 

“Wouldn’t, eh? If I can find him I’ll take 
him by the neck and make him go ; savez ? How 
do you put it up ? Runaway ? or a pile of bones out 
on the prairie somewhere ? ” 

“ It ’s hard to say. J effard ’s a queer combina- 
tion of good and not so good, — like a few others of 
us, — and just now the negative part is on top. He 
was pretty low the night we were together, though 
when we separated I thought he was taking himself 
a little less seriously.” 

“ Did n’t talk about getting the drop on himself, 
or anything like that ? ” 

“ N — no, not in a way to leave the impression 
that he was in any immediate danger of doing such 
a thing.” 

Bartrow chewed the end of his cigar reflectively. 
“ Has n’t taken to quizzing the world through the 
bottom of a whiskey-glass ? ” 

“ No, I should say not. Thus far, I think he has 
but the one devil.” 


THE HELPERS 


57 


“ And that ’s the ‘ tiger,’ of course. I knew about 
that ; I ’ve known it all along. The Lord forgive 
me ! I don’t know but I was the ring-master in that 
show. You know we chased around a good deal 
together, along at the first, and it ’s as likely as not 
I showed him a whole lot of things he ’d better not 
have seen.” 

The half-cynical smile lightened upon Lansdale’s 
grave face. “ That is one of my criticisms of 
Western manners,” he commented. “ When you 
get hold of a stranger, you welcome him with open 
arms — and proceed to regale him with a near-hand 
view of the back yards and cesspools. And then you 
swear piteously when he goes back East and tells 
his friends what an abandoned lot you are.” 

Bartrow took the thrust good-naturedly, as he did 
most of his chastenings. “ That ’s right ; that ’s 
just about what we do. But you ’ve been here long 
enough now to know that it ’s meant for hospitality. 
It ’s a way we ’ve got into of taking it for granted 
that people come out here more to see the sights 
than for any other purpose.” 

“ Oh, it ’s good of you — I don’t deny that ; only 
it ’s a little rough on the new-comer, sometimes. 
Take Jeffard’s case, for example. He came to 
Denver with good introductions ; I know, for I 
saw some of them. But a man in a strange city 
does n’t often go about presenting his social creden- 
tials. What he does is to make a few haphazard 
acquaintances, and let them set the pace for him. 
That is what Jeffard did, and I ’ll venture to say 


68 


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there have been nine evil doors open to him to one 
good one. You ’ve known him longer than any one 
else — how many times have you invited him to 
spend a rational evening with you in the company 
of respectable people ? ” 

“ Good Lord, Lansdale ; for Heaven’s sake don’t 
begin to open up that lead ! We ’re all miserable 
sinners, and I ’m the medicine-man of the tribe. I 
never asked the poor devil to go visiting with me 
but once, and that was after he was down.” 

“ And then he would n’t go, as a matter of course. 
But that is neither here nor there. I ’ll find him 
for you, if I can, and leave word for you at the St. 
James.” 

“ You ’re a brick, Lansdale ; that ’s about what 
you are. I ’ll get square with you some day. By 
the way, can’t you come up to Steve Elliott’s with 
me this evening and meet some good people ? ” 

Lansdale laughed outright. “ You ’re a good 
fellow, Bartrow, but you ’re no diplomat. When I 
go a-fishing into your mentality you ’ll never see the 
hook. Make my apologies to your friends, and tell 
them I ’m an invalid.” 

And Bartrow, being densely practical, and so 
proof against irony of whatsoever calibre, actually 
did so that evening when he called upon Miss 
Elliott and her cousin. 

“ But your friend was n’t promised to us, Mr. Bar- 
trow,” objected Miss Van Vetter. “Why should he 
send excuses ? ” 

“ 1 ’m blessed if I know,” said honest Dick, looking 


THE HELPERS 


59 


innocently from one to the other of them. “ But 
that ’s what he told me to do, and I ’ve done it.” 

Constance laughed softly. “ You ’re too good for 
any use, Dick. He was making game of you. Tell 
us how he came to say it.” 

Bartrow did that, also ; and the two young women 
laughed in chorus. 

“ After you ’ve had your fun out of it I wish 
you’d tell me, so I can laugh too,” he said. “I 
can’t see where the joke comes in, myself.” 

Constance enlightened him. “ There is n’t any 
joke — only this : he had just been scolding you 
about your inhospitality, and then you turn on him 
and ask him to go calling with you. Of course, 
he could n’t accept, then ; it would have been like 
inviting himself.” 

“ Well, what of it ? I don’t see why he should n’t 
invite himself, if he felt like it. He ’s a rattling 
good fellow.” And from thence the talk drifted 
easily to Jeffard, who was, or who had been, another 
good fellow. 

At the mention of Jeffard’s name, Constance 
borrowed the mask of disinterest, and laid her com- 
mands on Bartrow. “ Tell us about him,” she said. 

“ There is n’t much to teU. He came here from 
somewhere back East, got into bad company, lost 
his money, and now he ’s disappeared.” 

“ How did he lose his money?” Constance would 
have asked the question, but her cousin forestalled 
her. 

“ Gambled it,” quoth Bartrow placidly. 


60 


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Constance looked sorry, and Miss Van Vetter 
was plainly skocked. “ How very dreadful ! ” said 
the latter. “ Did he lose much ? ’’ 

“ Oh, no ; you could n’t call it much — only a 
few thousands, I believe. But then, you see, it was 
his stake ; it was all he had, and he could n’t afford 
to give it up. And now he has gone and hid out 
somewhere just when I have found a place for him. 
It makes me very weary.” 

“ Can’t you find any trace of him ? ” queried 
Constance. “ That is singular. I should think he 
would have left his address.” 

Bartrow grinned. “ W ell, hardly. Man don’t 
leave his address when he wants to drop out. 
That ’s the one thing he ’s pretty sure to take with 
him. But we ’ll run him down yet, if he ’s on top 
of earth. Lansdale has seen more of him lately 
than I have, and he is taking a hand. He and 
Jeffard used to flock together a good deal when the 
shoe was on the other foot.” 

Miss Van Vetter looked mystified; and Bartrow 
deemed it a matter for seK-congratulation that he 
was able to comprehend the query in her eyes with- 
out having it hurled at him in so many words. 

“ That was while Jeffard had money, and Lans- 
dale was trying to starve himself to death,” he ex- 
plained. “You see, Lansdale is a queer fish in 
some ways. When he ’s down he won’t let anybody 
touch him on his money side, so we used to work all 
kinds of schemes to keep him going. Jeffard would 
study them up, and I ’d help him steer them.” 


THE HELPERS 


61 


This was practical benevolence, and Connie’s in- 
terest bestirred itself in its charitable part. “ What 
were some of the schemes ? ” she asked. 

“ Oh, there were a lot of them. Lansdale can 
see farther into a millstone than most people, and 
we had to invent new ones as we went along. One 
time, Jeffard bought a common, every-day sort of a 
pockethook, and rumpled it up and tramped on it 
till it looked as if it might have come across the 
plains in Fifty-nine. Then he put a twenty-doUar 
hill and some loose silver in it, and dropped it on 
the sidewalk where I was walking Lansdale up and 
down for his health. After a while, when he ’d 
actually stumbled over it four or five times, Lans- 
dale saw the wallet and picked it up. Right there 
the scheme nearly feU down. You see, he was 
going to make me take charge of it while he ad- 
vertised it. I got out of it, somehow, hut I don’t 
believe he used a nickel of the money for a month.” 

Connie clapped her hands softly. “ That was 
fine ! Tell us some more.” 

“ The next one was better, and it worked like a 
charm. Lansdale writes things for the papers, only 
the editors here would n’t buy any of his work ” — 

“Why not?” interrupted Miss Van Vetter. 

“ I don’t know ; because it was too good, I guess. 
Anyway, they would n’t buy it, so Jefiard went to 
work on that lead. I took him around and intro- 
duced him to Kershaw of the ‘ Coloradoan,’ and he 
made Kershaw take fifty dollars on deposit, and got 
him to promise to accept some of Lansdale’s stories. 


62 


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Kershaw kicked like the deu — like the mischief, 
and did n’t want to do it ; but we bullied him, and 
then I got Lansdale to send him some stuff.” 

“ Mr. Jeffard is an artist in schemes, and I envy 
him,” said Connie. “ What happened to that one ? ” 

“ Kershaw upset it by not printing the stuff. Of 
course, Lansdale watched the ‘ Coloradoan,’ and 
when he found he was n’t in it, he would n’t send 
any more. We caught him the next time, though, 
for something worth while.” 

“How was that?” It was Miss Van Vetter who 
asked the question ; and Bartrow made a strenuous 
effort to evade the frontier idiom which stood ready 
to trip him at every turn when Myra Van Vetter’s 
poiseful gaze rested upon him. 

“Why, I happen to have a played-out — er — 
that is, a sort of no-account mine up in Clear Creek, 
and I made Lansdale believe I was the resident 
agent for the property, authorized to get up a de- 
scriptive prospectus. He took the job of writing it, 
and never once tumbled to the racket — that is, he 
never suspected that we were working him for a — 
oh, good Lord, why can’t I talk plain English ! — 
you know what I mean; he thought it was all 
straight. Well, he turned in the copy, and we paid 
him as much as he ’d stand ; but he has just about 
worried the life out of me ever since, trying to get 
to read proof on that prospectus. That one was 
Jeffard’s idea, too, but I made him let me in on the 
assessment.” 

Before Miss Van Vetter could inquire what the 


THE HELPERS 


63 


“ assessment ” was, Stephen Elliott came in and 
the talk became general. An hour later, when Bar- 
trow took his leave, Constance went to the door 
with him. 

“Don’t you really know where Mr. Jeffard is, 
Dick ? ” she asked. 

Something in her tone set him upon the right 
track. “ No ; do you ? ” 

“ I know that he left Denver quite a while ago ; 
about the time you were down last.” 

“ How do you know it ? ” 

“ He told me he was going.” 

“ The mischief he did ! Where did you get 
acquainted with him ? ” 

“ At Mrs. Calmaine’s.” 

Honest Dick ground his heel into the door-mat 
and thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his 
overcoat. What was in his mind came out shorn 
of euphemism. 

“ Say, Connie, do you care anything about him ? ” 

“ What a question ! ” she retorted, not pretend- 
ing to misunderstand its pointing. “ I ’ve met him 
only once — or twice, I should say, though I did n’t 
even know his name the first time.” 

“ What did he tell you ? about his going away, I 
mean.” 

“ He said — but you ’ve no right to ask me, 
Dick. It was n’t exactly a confidence, but ” — 

“ Yes, I have a right to ask ; he was my friend a 
good while before he was yours. Tell me what he 
said.” 


64 


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“ He gave me to understand that things had n’t 
been going quite right with him, and he said he was 
going to the mountains to — to try to make another 
start.” 

Bartrow tucked Connie’s arm under his own and 
walked her up and down the long veranda twice be- 
fore he could bring himself to say the thing that 
was. 

“ He did n’t go, Connie ; he ’s here now, if he 
has n’t gone out on the prairie somewhere and taken 
a pot shot at himself. Lansdale saw him only a 
week or so ago.” 

“ Oh, Dick! ” 

“ It ’s tough, is n’t it ? ” He stood on the step 
and buttoned his coat. “ But I ’m glad you know 
him — or at least, know who he is. If you should 
happen to run across him in any of your charity 
trips, just set Tommie on him and wire me if you 
find out where he burrows.” 

“ You said you had found a place for him. Will 
it keep ? ” 

“ I ’ll try to hold it open for him, and if you wire, 
I ’ll come down and tackle him. He ’s too good a 
fellow to turn down in his little day of witless- 
ness. Good-night; and good-by — for a week or 
so. I ’ve got to go back on the morning train.” 


CHAPTER VIII 


CoNTRAEY to the doctor’s prophecy, Margaret 
Gannon’s progress toward recovery was slow and 
rather uncertain. Constance professed to be sorry, 
but in her heart she was thankful, since the hesitant 
convalescence gave her time to try many expedients 
pointing toward the moral rehabilitation of her pro- 
tegee. Ignoring Margaret’s bodeful prediction, Con- 
stance coursed far and wide, quartering the domestic 
field diligently ; but inasmuch as she was careful in 
each instance to state the exact truth, each endeavor 
was but the introduction to another failure. 

“ Why, Constance EUiott ! The idea of your pro- 
posing such a thing to me ! ” said Mrs. Calmaine, 
upon whose motherly good sense Connie had leaned 
from childhood. “ That is what conies of a girl 
growing up as you have without a mother to watch 
over her. Can’t you understand how dreadful it is 
for you to mix up in such things ? You can’t touch 
pitch and not be defiled.” 

Connie was moved, first to tears, and presently to 
indignation. 

“ No, I can’t understand anything of the kind,” 
she retorted. “ It ’s your privilege not to take 
Margaret if you don’t want her ; but it ’s mine to 
help her, if I can. And I mean to do it in spite of 
all the cruel prejudice in the world ! ” 


66 


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“You talk like a foolish child, Connie. I can 
tell you beforehand that you won’t succeed in get- 
ting the woman into any respectable household in 
Denver, unless you do it under false pretenses.” 

“ So much the worse for our Christianity, then,” 
Connie asserted stoutly. “ If people won’t help, 
they ’ll have it to answer to One who was n’t afraid 
to take a much worse woman by the hand. That ’s 
all I have to say about it.” 

Mrs. Calmaine smiled benignantly. She had 
daughters of her own, and knew how to make allow- 
ances for youthful enthusiasm. 

“ You will get over it, after a while, and then 
you ’ll see how foolish it is to try to reform the 
world single-handed,” she rejoined. “ You might as 
well try to move Pike’s Peak as to think you can 
remodel society after your own enthusiastic notions. 
And when the reflective after-time comes, you ’ll be 
glad that society did n’t let you make a martyr of 
yourself at its expense. 

“ And, Connie, dear ; there is another side of the 
question which you should consider,” she continued, 
going to the door with her visitor. “ It ’s this : 
since society as a unit insists upon having this par- 
ticular kind of reformative work turned over to or- 
ganizations designed for the purpose, there must be 
a sufficient reason for it. You are not wiser than 
the aggregated wisdom of the civilized centuries.” 

Constance went her way, silenced, but by no 
means convinced ; and she added three more failures 
to her long list before going home to luncheon. In 


THE HELPERS 


67 


the afternoon, she laid hold of her courage yet once 
again, and went to her minister, good Dr. Launces- 
ton, pastor of St. CyriPs-in-the-Desert. Here, in- 
deed, she found sympathy without stint, hut it was 
hopelessly void of practical suggestion. 

“ It is certainly most pitiful. Miss Elliott, pitiful 
to a degree ; hut I really don’t see what is to he 
done. Had you any plan in view that, ah ” — 

“ It is because all my plans have come to grief 
that I am here,” said Connie. 

“ Dear, dear ! and those cases are so very hard to 
deal with. Now, if it were a question of money, I 
dare say we could manage it quite easily.” 

Constance had some very clear ideas on reformative 
subjects, and one of them was that it was not less 
culpable to pauperize than to ignore. 

“ It is n’t that,” she made haste to say. “ I could 
get money easily enough, but Margaret would n’t take 
it. If she would, I should have small hopes for her.” 

“ No,” rejoined the clergyman reflectively ; “ you 
are quite right. It is not a problem to be solved by 
money. The young woman must be given a chance 
to win her way back to respectability by her own 
efforts. Do I understand that she is willing to try 
if the opportunity should present itself ? ” 

“ I ’m afraid I can’t say that she is — not with- 
out reservation,” Connie admitted. “ You see, she 
knows the cruel side of the world ; and she is quite 
sure that any effort she might make would end in 
defeat and deeper disgrace.” 

“ A very natural apprehension, and one for which 


68 


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there are only too good grounds,” said the clergyman 
sadly. “We are compassionate and charitable in 
the aggregate, but as individuals I fear we are very 
unmerciful. Had you thought of trying to send 
her to one of our institutional homes in the East ? I 
might possibly be able to make such representations 
as would ” — 

Constance shook her head. “ Margaret is a Ro- 
man Catholic, and I suggested the House of the Good 
Shepherd in one of our earlier talks. She fought 
the idea desperately, and I don’t know that I blame 
her. She is just a woman like other women, and 
I believe she would gladly undertake an honest 
woman’s work in the world ; but that is n’t saying 
she ’d be willing to become a lay-sister.” 

“ No, I suppose not ; I quite agree with you. 
But what else can you do for her ? ” 

“ I don’t know. Doctor Launceston, — oh, I don’t 
know ! But I ’ll never give up till I ’ve done some- 
thing.” 

In the momentary afflatus of which fine determi- 
nation Constance went her way again, not whoUy 
comfortless tliis time, but apparently quite as far 
from the solution of the problem as when she had 
latched Mrs. Calmaine’s gate behind her. 

As for the clergyman, the precious fervor of the 
young enthusiast left a spark in his heart which 
burst into flame on the following Sunday morning, 
when he preached a stirring sermon from the text, 
“ Who is my neighbor? ” to the decorous and well- 
fed congregation of St. Cyril’ s-in-the-Desert. 


THE HELPERS 


69 


Leaving the rectory, Constance postponed the 
quest for that afternoon and went to pay her daily 
visit to Margaret. On the way downtown a happy 
thought came to her, and she welcomed it as an 
inspiration, setting it to work as soon as she had put 
the convalescent’s room in order. 

“You are feeling better to-day, are n’t you, 
Margaret ? ” she began. 

Yes. I ’m thinking I ’ll be able to go to work 
again before long ; only Pete Grim might n’t have 
no use for me.” 

Constance brought the hair-brush, and letting 
Margaret’s luxuriant hair fall in heavy masses over 
the back of the chair, began another of her minis- 
tries of service. 

“ Do you really want to go back to the Bijou ? ” 
she asked, knowing well enough what the answer 
would be. 

“ You know you need n’t to ask that ; it ’s just 
Pete Grim’s place or something worse. I can’t do 
no different ” — she paused and the fingers of her 
clasped hands worked nervously — “ and you can’t 
help it. Miss Constance. I know you ’ve been try- 
ing and worrying ; but it ain’t no use.” 

Connie did not find words to reply at once, but 
after a little she said : “ Tell me more about your 
dd home, Margaret.” 

“ I ’ve told you all there was to tell, many ’s the 
time since you found me with the fever.” 

“Let me see if I can remember it. You said 
your father was the village blacksmith, and that 


70 


THE HELPERS 


you used to sit in the shop and watch the sparks fly 
from the anvil as he worked. And when his day’s 
work was done, he would take you on his shoulder 
and carry you home to your mother, who called you 
her pretty coUeen, and loved you because you were 
the only girl. And then ” — 

“ Oh, dorUt ! ” There was sharp anguish in the 
cry, and Margaret covered her eyes with her hands 
as if to shut out the picture. Constance waited 
until she thought she had given the seed tune to 
germinate. Then she went on. 

“ And when you left home they mourned for you, 
not as one dead, but as one living and stiU beloved ; 
and as long as they could keep track of you they 
begged you to come back to them. Margaret, won’t 
you go ? ” 

Margaret shook her head in passionate negation. 
“ I can’t — I caiit ! that ’s the one thing I can’t do ! 
Did n’t I bring them shame enough and misery 
enough in the one day ? and will I be going back to 
stir it aU up again ? having the people say, ‘ There ’s 
Pat Gannon’s girl come back ; she that went to the 
bad and broke her mother’s heart.’ Indeed, I ’ll 
not do that, Miss Constance, though the saints and 
the holy angels ’U tell you I ’d do anything else you ’d 
ask.” 

This was Connie’s happy thought ; to induce 
Margaret to go back to her parents. When it 
proved to be but another rope of sand, she allowed 
it one sigh and changed front so cheerfully that 
Margaret never knew the cost of the effort. 


THE HELPERS 


71 


“ Then we must try something else,” she insisted. 
“ I ’ll never let you go back to the theatre — that ’s 
settled. You told me once you could trim hats. 
Have you ever done any other kind of sewing ? ” 

Margaret knelt before her trunk and threw out 
an armful of her stage finery. “ I made them,” she 
said. 

Constance examined the work critically. It was 
good, and she took courage. “ That is our way out 
of the trouble, Margaret. Why did n’t we think of 
it before ? When you are weU enough, I ’ll get you 
a sewing-machine and find you all the work you can 
do.” 

Margaret went to the window and stood there so 
long that Constance began to tremble lest the battle 
were going evilward at the last moment. The fear 
was groundless, as she found out when the girl came 
back to kneel and cry silently with her face in Con- 
nie’s lap. 

“ It is n’t so much the love of you,” she sobbed ; 
“ it ’s the knowing that somebody cares whether the 
likes of me goes straight to the devil or not. And 
never so much as a word about behaving myself, or 
confessing to the priest, or anything. Miss Con- 
stance,” — this with uplifted face, grown suddenly 
beautiful and glorified in the outshining of peni- 
tence, — “ the devil may fly away with me, — he did 
that same one day, — but if he does, I ’ll not live 
to leave him have the good of it. I promise you 
that.” 

“ I can trust you,” said Constance ; and she took 


72 


THE HELPERS 


her leave presently, wondering how the many-sided 
world could so unify itself in its merciless condem- 
nation of the Magdalenes. 

When she had closed Margaret’s door behind her 
and was halfway to the stair, she heard sounds as 
of a scuffle coming from a corridor intersecting the 
main hallway at the landing. Her first impulse was 
to retreat to Margaret Gannon’s room ; but when she 
recognized Tommie’s voice uplifted in alternate plea 
and imprecation, she went forward quickly. At the 
turn she met a gaunt, unshaven man leading Tommie 
by the ear, and her indignation slipped the leash 
without a thought of consequences. 

“ Are n’t you ashamed of yourself to abuse a 
child like that ! ” she began ; and then two things 
happened : JefPard released the boy, and Constance 
recognized in the gaunt figure the wreck of the man 
whom she had bidden God-speed on the stair at the 
Calmaine dancing party. 

Jeffard flattened himself against the wall, bowed 
low, and was about to apologize, when Tommie, 
scenting an accusation, proceeded to vindicate him- 
self by exploding a veritable bomb of consternation 
between the two. 

“ I warn’t doin’ ary single thing. Miss Constance, 
’ceptin’ jest wot you tolled me to do. I caught on to 
his nibs down on de street an’ follered him up yere ; 
an’ w’en I was takin’ a squint t’rough de keyhole, 
jest to make sure, he outs an’ nabs me.” 

For one dreadful instant Connie thought she must 
scream and run away. Then her wits came back, 


THE HELPERS 73 

and she saw that deliverance could come only 
through swift confession. 

“ Tommie,” she said hastily, “ run down and wait 
for me on the sidewalk.” And then to Jeffard ; 
“ The poor boy was n’t to blame ; he was doing just 
what he had been told to do, and you have a right 
to ask — to — to know ” — She stopped in pitiable 
embarrassment, and Jeffard flung himself into the 
breach with chivalric tact. 

“ Not another word. Miss Elliott, 1 implore you. 
It is n’t the first time I have been taken for my 
double, and in broad daylight at that. May I go 
down and make my peace with the boy ? ” 

Constance was too greatly perturbed not to catch 
gratefully at the chance to escape, and she made use 
of it while Jeffard was talking to Tommie at the 
foot of the stair. Taking Constance’s nod and smile 
in passing as tokens of amity, the urchin allowed 
himself to be placated ; and when Jeffard went back 
to his room he knew all that Tommie could tell him 
about Miss Elliott and her deeds of mercy. 

That night, before he went out to tramp himself 
weary, Jeffard did a characteristic thing. He 
wrapped his last five-dollar note around a bit of 
plaster dug from the wall, and creeping through the 
corridor in his stocking feet, tossed the peUet over 
the transom into Margaret Gannon’s room. 


CHAPTER IX 


At the breakfast-table the next morning, Constance 
had a shock that set her nerves a-jangle and banished 
her appetite. The exciting cause was a paragraph 
in the morning “ Coloradoan ” which her father had 
been reading between the fruit and the cereals. 

“ I wonder if that is n’t the fellow Dick was look- 
ing for and could n’t find,” he queried, passing the 
paper across the table with his finger on the sug- 
gestive paragraph. 

It was a custom-hardened account of a common- 
place tragedy. A man whose name was given as 
George Jeffrey had shot himself an hour before 
midnight on one of the bridges spanning Cherry 
Creek. Constance read the story of the tragedy 
with her father’s remark in abeyance, and the shock 
came with the conviction that the self-slain one was 
Jeffard, whose name might easily become Jeffrey in 
the hurried notes of a news-gatherer. The meagre 
particulars tallied accurately with Bartrow’s terse 
account of Jeffard’s sociological experiment. The 
suicide was a late-comer from the farther East ; he 
had spent his money in riotous living ; and he had 
latterly been lost to those who knew him best. 

It was characteristic of Stephen Elliott’s daughter 
that she passed the paper back to her father without 


THE HELPERS 


75 


comment, and that she preserved an outward pre- 
sentment of cheerfulness during the remainder of 
the meal. But when she was free she ran up to her 
room and was seen no more of her father or her 
cousin until the latter went upstairs an hour later to 
see if Connie were ready for her morning walk. 

“ Why, Connie, dear ! What is the matter ? ” 
Since her tap at the door went unanswered, Myra 
had turned the knob and entered. Connie was lying 
in a dejected little heap on the floor before the fire- 
less grate. She shook her head in dumb protest at 
her cousin’s question ; but when Myra knelt beside 
her it all came out brokenly. 

“You did n’t see what poppa gave me to read : it 
was an account of a suicide. Mr. Jeffard has killed 
himself, and — and, oh, Myra ! it ’s all my fault ! ” 

“ Mr. Jeffard ? Oh, I remember now, — Mr. 
Bartrow’s friend. But I don’t understand ; how 
could it have been your fault ? ”■ 

“ It was, it was ! Don’t you remember what Dick 
said ? that Mr. J eff ard was in trouble, and that he 
had a place for him ? I saw him yesterday, and I — 
I did Vbt tell him 1 ” 

“ But, Connie, dear, how could you ? You did n’t 
know him.” Getting no more than a smothered 
sob in reply to this, Myra asked for particulars, and 
Connie gave them sparingly. 

“You say the name was George Jeffrey? Why 
do you think it was Mr. Jeffard ? I can’t for the 
life of me see how you are to blame, in the remotest 
sense ; but if you are, it ’s foolish to grieve over it 


76 


THE HELPERS 


until you are quite sure of the identities. Is n’t 
there any way you can find out ? ” 

Connie sat up at that, but she refused to be 
comforted. 

“ There is a way, and I ’U try it ; but it ’s no use, 
Myra. I ’m just as sure as if I had stood beside 
him when he did it. And I shall never, never for- 
give myself ! ” 

She got up and bathed her eyes, and when she 
had made herself ready to go out, she refused Myra’s 
proffer of company. 

“ No, dear ; thank you, but I ’d rather go alone,” 
she objected ; “ I ’ll share the misery of it with you 
by and by, perhaps, but I can’t just yet.” 

Her plan for making sure was a simple one. 
Tommie Reagan had known Jeffard living, and he 
would know him dead. Putting it in train, she 
found her small henchman selling papers on his 
regular beat in front of the Opera House ; and inas- 
much as he was crying the principal fact of the 
tragedy, she was spared the necessity of entering 
into details. 

“ Tommie, have you — did you go to see the man 
who killed himself last night ? ” she questioned. 

“ Nope ; der ain’t no morbid cur’osity inside o’ 
me. 

“ Would you go ? — if I asked you to ? ” 

“ W’y, cert ; I ’d take a squint at de old feller 
wid de hoofs an’ horns if it ’d do you any good.” 

“ Then I ’ll teU you why I want you to go. I am 
afraid it is the man we were going to try to help.” 


V 


THE HELPERS 


77 

The boy shut one eye and whistled softly. “ My 
gosh ! but dat ’s tough, ain’t it now! An’ jest w’en 
I ’d got ’quainted with him an’ was a-fixin’ to give 
him a lift ! Dat ’s wot I call hard luck ! ” 

Constance felt that the uncertainty was no longer 
to be borne. “ Go quickly, Tommie,” she directed ; 
“ and hurry back as soon as you can. I ’U wait for 
you in the drug store across the street.” 

The coroner’s office was not far to seek, and the 
small scout was back in a few minutes. 

“ Dey would n’t lemme look,” he reported, “ but I 
skinned round to where I could see'de top o’ his 
head. It ’s his nibs, right ’nough.” 

“ Tommie ! Are you quite sure ? ” 

“ Nope ; feller ain’t sure o’ nothin’ in dis world, 
’ceptin’ death an’ de penitenchry,” amended Tommie, 
doing violence to his convictions when he saw that 
his patron saint was sorely in need of comfort. 
“ Maybe ’t ain’t him, after all. You jest loaf ’round 
yere a couple o’ shakes while I skip down to his 
hotel an’ see wot I can dig up.” 

The boy was gone less than a quarter of an hour, 
but to Constance the minutes marched leaden-footed. 
When Tommie returned, his face signaled discom- 
fiture. 

“ I did n’t send me card up,” he explained, with 
impish gravity ; “ I jest went right up to his nibsey’s 
room an’ mogged in, a-thinkin’ I ’d offer him a paper 
if he happened to be there and kicked. Say, Miss 
Constance; ’t ain’t a-goin’ ter do no good to cry 
about it. He ain’t there, an’ he ain’t been there, 
’nless he slep’ in a chair.” 


78 


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Constance went home with a lump in her throat 
and her trouble writ large on her face, and Myra 
needed not to ask the result of the investigation. 
Miss Yan Yetter was not less curious than she 
should have been, but something in Connie’s eyes 
forestalled inquiry, and Myra held her peace. 

Connie wore out the day as best she might, 
widening the rift of sorrow until it bade fair to 
become an abyss of remorse. When evening came, 
and with it a telegram from Bartrow, asking if she 
had yet learned Jeffard’s whereabouts, it was too 
much, and she shared the misery with her cousin, 
as she had promised to, making a clean breast of 
it from the beginning. Something to her surprise, 
Myra heard her through without a word of condem- 
nation or reproach. 

“ Now that is something I can understand,” said 
Myra, when the tale was told. “ The most of your 
charity work seems to me to be pitifully common- 
place and inconsequent; but here was a mission 
which asked for all sorts of heroism, for which it 
promised to pay the highest of all prices, namely, 
the possibility of saving a man worth the trouble.” 

Now Connie was weU assured that her love for 
her neighbor was no respecter of persons, and she 
made answer accordingly. 

“ I can’t agree with you there, Myra. Mr. Jef- 
fard’s possible worth had nothing to do with it. I 
wanted to help him because — well, because it was 
mean in me to make him talk about himself that 
night at the opera. And besides, when I met him the 


THE HELPERS 


79 


next evening at Mrs. Calmaine’s, he told me enough 
to make me quite sure that he needed all the help, 
and encouragement he could get. Of course, he did 
n’t say anythmg like that, you know ; but I knew.” 

Myra’s eyes promised sympathy, and Connie went 
on. 

“ Then, when I came upon him yesterday I was 
angry because he was hurting Tommie. And after- 
ward, when I tried to explain, he made me under- 
stand that I must n’t reach down to him ; and — 
and I did n’t know any other way to go about it.” 

“ That was a situation in which I should proba- 
bly have horrified you,” said Myra decisively. “ I 
should n’t have noticed or known anything about him 
at first, as you did ; but in your place yesterday, and 
with your knowledge of the circiunstances, I should 
have said my say whether he wanted to hear it or 
not. And I ’d have made him listen to reason, too.” 

“You don’t quite understand, Myra. It seemed 
altogether impossible ; though if I had known what 
was in his mind I should have spoken at any cost.” 

Twenty, times the pendulum of the chalet clock 
on the wall beat the seconds, and Myra was silent ; 
then she crossed over to Connie’s chair and sat upon 
the arm of it. 

“ Connie, dear, you ’re crying again,” — this with 
her arm around her cousin’s neck. “ Are you quite 
sure you have n’t been telling me half - truths ? 
Was n’t there the least little bit of a feeling warmer 
than charity in your heart for this poor fellow ? ” 

Constance shook her head, but the denial did not 


80 


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set itself in words. “ He was Dick’s friend, and 
that was enough,” she replied. 

Miss Van Vetter’s lips brushed her cousin’s cheek, 
and Constance felt a warm tear plash on her hand. 
This was quite another Myra from the one she 
thought she knew, and she said as much. 

“ "VV e ’re all puzzles, Connie dear, and the an- 
swers to most of us have been lost; but, do you 
know, I can’t help crying a little with you for this 
poor fellow. Just to think of him lying there with 
no one witliin a thousand miles to care the least 
little bit about it. And if you are right — if it is 
Mr. Bartrow’s friend — it ’s so much the more piti- 
ful. The world is poorer when such men leave it.” 

“ Why, Myra ! What do you know about him ? ” 

“ Nothing more than you do — or as much. But 
surely you have n’t forgotten what Mr. Bartrow told 
us.” 

“ About his helping Mr. Lansdale ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ No, I had n’t forgotten.” 

“ It was very noble ; and so delicately chivalrous. 
It seems as if one who did such things would surely 
be helped in his own day of misfortime. But that 
does n’t often happen, I ’m afraid.” 

• “ No,” Constance assented, with a sigh ; and Myra 
went back to the question of identity. 

“ I suppose there is no possible chance that Tom- 
mie may have been mistaken ? ” 

Constance shook her head. “ I think not ; he 
saw that I was troubled about it, and he would 


THE HELPERS 


81 


have strained a point to comfort me if the facts had 
given him leave. But I shall be quite sure before 
I answer Dick’s message.” 

With that thought in mind, and with no hope 
behind it, Constance waylaid her father in the hall 
the next morning as he was about to go out. 

“ Poppa, I want you to do sometliing for me ; no, 
not that ” — the elderly man was feeling in his 
pockets for his check-book — “it is something very 
different, this time ; different and — and rather 
dreadful. You remember the suicide you read 
about, yesterday morning ? ” 

“ Did I read about one ? Oh, yes ; the man that 
shot himself down on the Platte, or was it Cherry 
Creek? The fellow I thought might be Dick’s 
friend. What about it ? ” 

“ It ’s that. We ought to make sure of it for 
Dick’s sake, you know. Won’t you go to the 
coroner’s office and see if it is Mr. J effard ? It ’s a 
horrible thing to ask you to do, but ” — 

There was grim reminiscence in the old pioneer’s 
smile. “It won’t be the first one I’ve seen that 
died with his boots on. I ’ll go and locate your claim 
for you.” 

She kissed him good-by, but he came back from 
the gate to say : “ Hold on, here ; I don’t know 
your Mr. Jeffard from a side of sole leather. How 
am I going to identify him ? ” 

“You’ve seen him once,” she explained. “Do 
you remember the man who sat next to me the night 
we went to hear ‘ The Bohemian Girl ? 


82 


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“ The thirsty one that you and Myra made a bet 
on? Yes, I recollect him.” 

“ I don’t think he was thirsty. W ould you know 
him if you were to see him again ? ” 

“ I guess maybe I would ; I ’ve seen him half a 
dozen times since, — met him out here on the side- 
walk the next morning. Is that your man ? ” 

“That was Mr. Jeffard,” she affirmed, turning 
away that he might not see the tears that welled up 
unbidden. 

“ All right ; I ’ll go and identify him for you.” 

So he said, and so he meant to do ; but it proved 
to be a rather exciting day at the Mining Ex- 
change, and he forgot the commission until he was 
about to board a homeward-bound car in the even- 
ing. Then he found that he was too late. The 
body of the suicide had been shipped East in accord- 
ance with telegraphic instructions received at noon. 
When he made his report to Constance, she feU back 
upon Tommie’s assurance, and sent the delayed 
answer to Bartrow’s message, telling him that his 
friend was dead. 

Having sorrowfully recorded all these things in 
the book of facts accomplished, it was not wonderful 
that Constance, coming out of Margaret Gannon’s 
room late the following afternoon, should cover her 
face and cry out in something akin to terror when 
she cannoned against Jeffard at the turn in the 
dingy hallway. Neither was it remarkable that her 
strength should forsake her for the moment ; nor 
that Jeffard, seeing her plight, should forget his 


THE HELPERS 


83 


degradation and give her timely help by leading her 
to a seat in the dusty window embrasure. At that 
the conventionalities, or such shreds of them as 
might still have bound either of them, parted asun- 
der in the^ midst, and for the time being they were 
but a man and a woman, as God had created them. 

“ Oh, I ’m so glad ! ” were her first words. “I — 
I thought you were dead ! ” 

“ I ought to be,” was his comment. “ But what 
made you think that ? ” 

“ It was in the newspaper — about the man who 
shot himself. I was afraid it was you, and when 
Tommie had been to see we were sure of it.” 

“ In the newspaper ? ” he queried ; and then, with 
a ghost of a smile which was mirthless : “ It was a 
little previous, but so justifiable that I really ought 
to take the hint. Can’t you tell me more ? I’m 
immensely interested.” 

She told him everything from the beginning, con- 
cluding with a pathetic little appeal for forgiveness 
if she had done wrong in taking too much for 
granted. 

“ You could n’t weU do that,” he hastened to say. 
“ And you must n’t ask forgiveness for motives 
which an angel might envy. But it is casting pearls 
before swine in my case. Miss Elliott. I have sown 
the wind, deliberately and with malice aforethought, 
and now I am reaping the whirlwind, and regretting 
day by day that it does n’t develop sufficient violence 
to finish that which it has begun.” 

“Please don’t say that,” she pleaded. “There 


84 


THE HELPERS 


are always hands stretched out to help us, if we 
could but see and lay hold of them. Why won’t 
you let Dick help you when he is so anxious to do 
it? You will, now that you know about it, won’t 
you?” 

“ I knew about it before. Lansdale told me, but 
I made him promise to drop it. It is n’t that I 
would n’t accept help from Bartrow as willingly as 
I would from any one in the world ; it is simply that 
I don’t care to take the chance of adding ingratitude 
to my other ill-doings.” 

“ Ingratitude ? ” 

“Yes. The man who allows his friend to help 
him in any crisis of his own making should at least 
be able to give bond for his good behavior. I can’t 
do that now. I would n’t trust myself to go across 
the street. I know my own potentiality for evil too 
well.” 

“ But potentiality is n’t evil,” she protested. “ It ’s 
only the power to do things, good or bad. And if 
one have that there is always hope.” 

“ Not for me,” he said shortly. “ I have sinned 
against grace.” 

“ Who has n’t ? ” Constance rejoined. “ But 
grace does n’t die because it ’s sinned against.” 

He smiled again at that. “ I think my particular 
allotment of grace is dead beyond the hope of resur- 
rection.” 

“ How can that be ? ” 

He put his back to the window so that he had not 
to look in her eyes. 


THE HELPERS 


85 


“ Grace for most men takes the form of an ideal. 
So long as the condition to be attained is ahead 
there is hope, but when one has turned his back 
upon it ” — 

Indirection fences badly with open-eyed sincerity, 
and he did not finish. But the door was open now, 
and Constance meant to do her whole duty. 

“ I think I understand,” she assented ; “ but I 
wish you would be quite frank with me. In a way, 
I am Mr. Bartrow’s deputy, and if I have to teU him 
you refuse to let him help you, I shall have to give 
him a better reason than you have given me.” 

“ You are inexorable,” he said, and there was love 
in his eyes, despite his efforts reasonward. “I wish 
I dared tell you the whole miserable truth.” 

“ And why may you not*? ” 

“ Because it concerns — a woman.” 

She shrank back a little at that, and he saw that 
she had misunderstood. Wherefore he plunged 
recklessly into the pool of frankness. 

“The woman is a good woman,” he went on 
quickly, “ and one day not so very long ago I loved 
her well enough to believe that I could win my way 
back to decency and uprightness for her sake. It 
was a mistake. I had fallen lower than I knew, 
and the devil came in for his own.” 

Here was something tangible to lay hold of at 
last, and Connie made instant use of it. 

“ Does she know ? ” she asked. 

The mirthless smile came and went again. “ She 
thinks she does.” 


86 


THE HELPERS 


“ But you have n’t told her all ; is that it ? ” 

have tried to, but, being a good woman, she 
can’t understand. I think I did n’t fully understand, 
myseK ; but I do now.” 

“ Is it so far beyond reparation ? ” 

“ It is indeed. If the devil’s emissary who has 
brought me to this pass could be exorcised this 
moment I should never recover the lost ground of 
self-respect. There is nothing to go back to. If I 
had not to be despicable from necessity, I should 
doubtless be so from choice.” 

“ I think you are harder with yourself than you 
would be with another. Can’t you begin to believe 
in yourself again ? I believe in you.” 

“ You ! — but you don’t know what you are 
saying. Miss Elliott. See ! ” — his coat was but- 
toned to the chin, tramp-wise, and he tore it open 
to show her the rags that underlay it — “ do you 
understand now ? I have pawned the shirt off my 
back — not to satisfy the cravings of hunger, but to 
feed a baser passion than that of the most avaricious 
miser that ever lived. Do I make it plain that I 
am not worthy of your sympathy, or of Richard 
Bartrow’s ? ” 

For once the clear gray eyes were veiled, and her 
chin quivered a little when she spoke. “ You hurt 
me more than I can tell,” she said. 

The dull rage of self-abasement in him flamed 
into passion at the sight of what he had done, but 
the bitter speech of it tarried at the sound of a 
heavy step on the stair. Constance rose from her 


THE HELPERS 


87 


seat in the window embrasure with a nervous thrill 
of embarrassment, but Jeffard relieved her at once. 
There was a vacant room on the opposite side of the 
corridor, and when the intruder appeared at the 
stair-head. Miss Elliott was alone. 

She glanced at the man as he passed, and Jeffard, 
from his place behind the haK-closed door of the 
vacant room, saw her draw back, and clenched his 
hands and swore softly, because, forsooth, she had 
for some fleeting pulse-beat of time to breathe the 
same air with the intruder. For he knew the man 
as a purveyor for Peter Grim’s house of dishonor ; 
a base thing for which wholesome speech has no 
name. 

What followed was without sequence. Almost at 
the same instant the footsteps of the man ceased to 
echo in the empty corridor, there was a cry half 
angry and half of terror from Margaret Gannon’s 
room, and Miss Elliott disappeared from Jelfard’s 
limited field of vision. In the turning of a leaf 
Jeffard was at the door of the room in the end of 
the corridor. What he saw and heard made a man 
of him for the moment. Margaret Gannon had evi- 
dently been surprised at her sewing-machine; the 
work was still under the needle, and the chair was 
overturned. Margaret was crouching in the far- 
thest corner of the room, with Miss Elliott standing 
over her like a small guardian angel at bay. The 
nameless one had his back to the door, and Jeffard 
heard only the conclusion of a jeering insult which 
included both of the women. 


88 


THE HELPERS 


Now Jeffard had fasted for twenty-four hours, 
and the quick dash to the end of the corridor made 
him dizzy and faint ; but red wrath, so it be 
fierce enough, is its own elixir. Thinking of nothing 
but that he should acquit himself as a man before 
the woman he loved, he flung himself upon the 
contemner of women with the vigor of a righteous 
cause singing in his veins like the wine of new life. 

The struggle was short and decisive. In his 
college days Jeffard had been a man of his hands, 
and the fierce onset proved to be the better half of 
the battle. Constance caught her breath and cowered 
in the corner with Margaret when the two men went 
down together, but she gave a glad little cry when 
she saw that Jefiard had won the fall ; that he had 
wrenched the drawn pistol from the other’s grasp 
and flung it harmless across the room. Then there 
was another and a fiercer grapple on the floor, and 
Jeffard’s fist rose and fell like a blacksmith’s hammer 
with the dodging head of his antagonist for its anvil. 

The end of it^was as abrupt as the beginning. 
In the midst of another wrestling bout the beaten 
one freed himself, bounded to his feet, and darted 
mto the corridor with Jeffard at his heels. There 
was a sharp scurry of racing feet in the hall, a 
prolonged crash as of a heavy body falling down the 
stair, and J effard was back again, panting with the 
violence of it, but with eyes alight and an apology on 
his lips. 

Constance ran to meet him and cut the apology 
short. 


89 


THE HELPERS 

“ The idea ! ” she protested ; “ when it was for 
Margaret’s sake and mine ! Are you sure you’re 
not hurt ? ” 

Jeffard’s knuckles were cut and bleeding, but he 
kept that hand behind him. 

“ It ’s the other feUow who is hurt, I hope.” 
Then to Margaret : “ Do you know him ? Are you 
afraid of him ? ” 

Margaret glanced at Constance and hesitated. 
“ He ’ll not be troubling me any more,T ’m tliinking. 
It’s Pete Grim that sent him; and he was at me 
before I knew.” 

J eff ard picked up the captured weapon and put it 
on^the sewing-machine. 

“ Take that to him if he comes again when you 
are alone. Miss Elliott, please stay here a moment 
until I can go down and see that the way is clear.” 

He was gone at the word, but he had barely 
reached the window with the dusty embrasure when 
she overtook him. There was a sweet shyness in 
her manner now, and he trembled as he had not in 
any stage of the late encounter. 

“ Mr. Jeffard,” she began, “ will you forgive me 
if I say that you have disproved all the hard things 
you were trying to say of yourself ? You ’ll let me 
wire Dick, now, won’t you ? ” 

He shook his head because he was afraid to trust 
himseK to speak. As between an abject appeal 
with his hopeless passion for its motive, and a 
plunge back into the abyss of degradation which 
would efface the temptation, there was nothing to 
choose. 


90 


THE HELPERS 


“ You will at least promise me that you will con- 
sider it,” she went on. “ I can’t ask less.” 

If he did not reply immediately it was because he 
was trying to fix her image so that he should always 
be able to think of her just as she stood, with the 
afternoon sunlight faUing upon her face, irradiating 
it and making a shimmering halo of the red-brown 
hair and deep wells of the clear gray eyes. A 
vagrant thought came to him ; that it was worth 
a descent into the nether depths to have such a 
woman seek him out and plead with him for his 
soul’s sake. He put it aside to deny her entreaty. 

“ I can’t promise even that.” 

She was silent for a moment, and embarrassment 
came back and fought for holding-ground when she 
tried to bring herself to do the thing which compas- 
sion suggested. But compassion won ; and J efiard 
looked on with a haH-cynical smile when she took a 
gold coin from her purse and offered it to him. 

“ Just for the present,” she begged, with a beseech- 
ing look which might have melted a worse man. 

He took the money, and the smile ended in an 
unpleasant laugh. 

“ You think I ought to refuse, and so I ought ; 
as any man would who had a spark of manhood left 
in him. But that is why I take it; I have been 
trying to make you understand that I am not worth 
saving. Do I make it plain to you ? ” 

“ You make me very sorry,” she quavered ; and 
because her sorrow throttled speech, she turned and 
left him. 


CHAPTER X 


After Constance had gone, Jeffard had an ex- 
ceedingly bad half-hour. For a time he tramped 
up and down the deserted corridor, calling himself 
hard names and likening his latest obliquity to 
whatsoever unpardonable sin has been recorded 
against the most incorrigible of mankind. Love 
had its word, also — outraged love, acknowledged 
only to be openly flouted and spat upon; for one 
may neither do violence to a worthy passion, nor 
give rein to an unworthy, without paying for it, 
blow for blow. What would she think of him? 
What could she think, save that she had wasted her 
sympathy on a shameless vagabond who had sought 
to palm himself off on her and her friends as a 
gentleman ? 

The thought of it was stifling. The air of the 
musty hallway seemed suddenly to grow suffocating, 
and the muffled drumming of the sewing-machine in 
Margaret Gannon’s room jarred upon him until it 
drove him forth to wander hot-hearted and despe- 
rate in the streets. 

Without remembering that he had crossed the 
viaduct or ascended the hiU, he finally found him- 
self wandering in the Highlands. Drifting aim- 
lessly on beyond the fringe of suburban houses, he 


92 


THE HELPERS 


came to the borders of a shallow pond what time the 
sun was poising for its plunge behind the upreared 
mountain background in the west. It was here, 
when he had flung himself down upon the warm 
brown earth in utter weariness of soul and body, 
that his good angel came once more and wrestled 
with him. 

Looking backward he saw that the angle of the 
inclined plane had grown suddenly precipitous 
within a fortnight. Since the night of his quarrel 
with the well-meaning miner, the baize door at the 
head of the carpeted stair had been closed to him. 
In consequence he had been driven to the lair of 
a less carefuUy groomed but more rapacious wild 
beast whose keeper offered his patrons a choice 
between the more serious business of the gaming- 
tables, and the lighter diversions of a variety the- 
atre. Jeffard had seen the interior of the Bijou on 
the earliest of his investigative expeditions in Den- 
ver, and had gone away sick at heart at the sight of 
it. Wherefore it was a measure of the depths to 
which he had descended that he could become an ha- 
bitue of the place, caring nothing for the misery and 
depravity which locked arms with all who breathed 
its tainted atmosphere. 

It was at the Bijou that he had lost the better 
part of the winnings rescued by the miner’s bit of 
charitable by-play ; and it was there, also,* that he 
had thrown away the major portion of a second gift 
from Lansdale. For two nights in succession the 
lack of money had kept him away. 


THE HELPERS 


93 


He took ojit Connie’s offering and stared at it 
with lack-lustre eyes. With heedful manipulation 
here was the fuel to feed the fire of his besetting 
passion for some hours. Having permitted her to 
give and himself to take it, why should he quib- 
ble at the manner of its spending ? When he saw 
that hesitancy implied another attempt to turn back 
at the eleventh hour, he felt that this was no longer 
possible. Try as he might, the shame of this last 
infamous thing would reach out and drag him back 
into the mire. 

The alternative disposed of, the matter simplified 
itself. He had only to determine whether he should 
end it all before or after he had flung away this bit 
of yellow metal. The decision was so nicely bal- 
anced that he let it turn upon the flipping of the 
coin — heads for a sudden plunge into the pond, 
tails for a final bout with chance and the plunge 
afterward. 

He spun the gold piece, and went down on his 
hands and knees to read the oracle in the fading 
light. It was the misshapen eagle that stared back 
at him from the face of the coin, and he took his 
reprieve sullenly, calling his evil genius a usurer. 

He got upon his feet stiffly and turned liis face 
toward the city. Then it occurred to him that it 
would be well to make his preparations while he 
could see. There was a house building on the little 
knoll above the pond ; a brick and the binding- 
string from a bundle of lath would serve ; and when 
he had secured them he sounded the pond around 


. 94 


THE HELPERS 


the edges with a stick. It was too shallow ; hut 
from a plank thrown across to the head of the 
drainage flume it proved deep enough, and here he 
left the brick and the bit of tarred twine. 

Half an hour later he entered the Bijou. On the 
threshold he met the proprietor ; and when he would 
have passed with a nod, Grim barred the way. 

“ Been layin’ for you,” announced the man of vice, 
sententiously. “ Come into the box-oflice.” 

Jeffard obeyed mechanically. He was in the 
semi-stupor which anticipates the delirium of the 
gaming fever, and the man’s voice sounded afar off. 
Grim led the way behind the bar to a windowless 
den furnished with a roU-top desk and two chairs. 
Closing the door, he waved Jeffard to a seat. 

“ Been sort o’ sizin’ you up lately, and I put it up 
that you ’re out o’ luck. Does that call the turn ? ” 

“ I don’t know how that concerns you,” said Jef- 
fard, with a sudden access of duU resentment. 

“ No more do I ; but that ’s neither here nor 
yonder. You ’re down on your luck, ain’t you ? ” 

Jeffard nodded. “ Call it that, if you like.” 

“ Thought so. Broke most of the time, I reckon ? ” 

“ Yes ; most of the time.” 

“ Jes’ so. Well, I ’m goin’ to put you on to a soft 
snap. I know all about you — who you are, where 
you come from, and all the rest. You ’ve been 
playin’ to lose right along, and now I ’m goin’ to 
give you a tip so you can play to win ever’ time. 
See?” 

Jeffard came out of his abstraction sufficiently to 


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wonder what the man was driving at. “ Make it 
short,” he rejoined curtly. 

Grim leaned back in his pivot-chair, and his hard 
face wrinkled under an evil smile. 

“ Don’t be in a rush. Game runs all night, and 
you ’ll have plenty of time to go and blow in what- 
ever you ’ve got after I get through with you. Or, 
if you can’t wait, go and blow it first, and we ’ll 
talk business afterwards.” 

“ No,-” Jeffard objected sullenly. “ If you have 
anything to say to me, say it now.” 

“ Business before pleasure, eh ? All right ; here ’s 
the lay-out. I ’m goin’ to stake you with a suit o’ 
good clothes, pay your board at the Albany or the 
Brown, whichever you like, and give you a roll to 
flash up that ’U make you feel flush ever’ time you 
look at it. Then ” — 

Jeffard’s gesture was of impatience. 

“ Never mind about the details. What is the 
price of all this ? ” 

“ Mighty nigh nothin’ at all. You had plenty o’ 
friends a while back, and you ’ll have ’em again, as 
soon as you ’re flush. And when any of ’em feel 
like proddin’ the tagger, why — you know where 
he ’s kep’ ; that ’s all.” 

While one might draw a breath there was murder 
in J«ffard’s heart ; in his weakness a rage that was 
childish in its vehemence took possession of him, 
and he covered his face with his hands to crush 
back the hot tears of impotence which sprang up 
and blinded him. Grim looked on unpityingly, 


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waiting for what he conceived to be the inevitable. 
When Jeffard struggled to his feet, his face was 
white and he had to steady himself by the back of 
the chair. 

“ I thought I ’d got to the bottom when I came 
here to-night,” he began unsteadily, “ but you Ve 
shown me my mistake. Thank God, I can yet say 
No to you, low as I am. Let me get out of here.” 

Knowing the strength of the gambler’s chain, as 
well as the length thereof. Grim held his peace ; and 
Jeffard pushed past the bar-tender and went out 
through the small door at the end of the bar. On 
the sidewalk a crowd beset the theatre entrance, and 
out of the midst of it came two men, striking and 
clutching at each other as they fought their way 
into the clear. Within arm’s - length of Jeffard 
they separated. He saw the sheen of the electric 
light on a weapon, and darted between them in time 
to spoil the aim of the man who drew first. There 
was a flash and a report, a rush on the part of the 
crowd, and J eff ard found himseff dodging and 
doubling swiftly through dark alleys and crooked 
covered ways, following the lead of the man whose 
life he had saved. After a time they came out in a 
silent street where there was light. 

“ Did n’t know me, did you, pardner ? ” quoth 
the fugitive, relaxing his grasp on Jeffard’s wrist. 
“ Like as not you would n’t ’a’ done it if you had, 
but that don’t saw no wood with me. That greaser 
had the drop on me, sure ’s yer born.” 

Whereupon Jeffard looked again, and recognizing 


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Ms friendly enemy of the winning night, was glad, 
inasmuch as he had been able to cancel an obli- 
gation. None the less, his reply was ungracious 
enough. 

“Oh, it’s you, is it? Well, we’re quits now. 
Good-night.” 

He turned and walked away, but at the corner the 
man overtook him. “Not that-a-way,” he forbade, 
pointing up the street. “ Somebody in the crowd ’ll 
be sure to know you, and you ’ll walk slap back into 
trouble after I done drug you out. The p’lice are 
there by this time, an’ they don’t care who, so they 
get a man ’r two to lock up.” 

Jeffard nodded, and made a circuit of the dan- 
gerous locality with his head up and the light of a 
steadfast purpose in Ms eyes. Whatever of vacilla- 
tion there was in Mm an hour earlier had been thor- 
ougMy flailed out in the brief interview with Peter 
Grim. He knew now what he had to do, and the 
precise manner of its doing. 

Keeping to the quieter streets, he came out in 
front of the St. James ; and dodging the crowded 
lobby, made his way to the writing-room. Since he 
dare not go to the clerk for stationery, he was com- 
pelled to wait until some one left what he required. 
The chance befell presently, but when he came to 
write his note to Constance Elliott the tMng was 
harder to do than he had prefigured it. What he 
finally wrote, after he had spoiled two of the three 
sheets of paper left by Ms predecessor in the chair 
at the writing-table, was this : — 


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“After what happened this afternoon, you will 
not think worse of me if I ask you to let me try to 
explain what must seem to you too despicable to be 
remembered. I can’t hope to make you understand 
without being frank, and when, at some future time, 
you may learn the circumstances under which this is 
written, I shall hope for forgiveness. 

“ You may remember that I said I could n’t tell 
you the truth, because it concerns a woman. When 
I add that the woman is yourseK, you will under- 
stand. I love you ; I think I have been loving you 
ever since that evening which you said we were to 
forget — the evening at the theatre. Strangely 
enough, my love for you is n’t strong in the strength 
which saves. I went from you that night when you 
had bidden me God-speed at Mrs. Calmaine’s, and 
within the hour I was once more a penniless vaga- 
bond. 

“ When you were trying to help me this after- 
noon, I was trying to keep from saying that which I 
could never have a right to say. You pressed me 
very hard in your sweet innocence and loving sym- 
pathy, — you see, I am quite frank, — and when you 
finally gave me a chance to make the impossible 
thing that I longed to say still more impossible, I 
took it in sheer desperation. Nay, more; I pur- 
posed in my heart to so desecrate your gift as to 
make the thought of my love for you an unhallowed 
memory. 

“ That is all, I think, save, when it came to the 
brink, I found that there was still a deeper depth 


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99 


which was yet unplumhed, and which I trust I shall 
have the courage to leave unexplored.” 

When it was finished he wrapped the gold piece 
in a bit of paper, and, putting it in the envelope 
with the note, set out to find the house in Colfax 
Avenue. Having seen it but once, and that in day- 
light, it was not singular that it eluded him in the 
night ; but it was surely the very irony of chance 
which led him to slip the envelope under the front 
door of a house two squares beyond that occupied 
by the Elliotts, and which kept him from noticing 
the placard “ For Rent ” nailed upon the very door 
under which he thrust his message to Constance. 

This single preliminary set in order, he faced 
once more toward the Highlands, lagging a little 
from sheer weariness as he went, but finding com- 
fort in the thought that there would be infinite sur- 
cease from hunger and exhaustion at the end of this 
last pilgrimage. 

There was time for reflection on the way, and he 
marvelled that his thoughts dwelt so persistently 
upon the trivial details of the thing he was about to 
do. He was a practiced swimmer ; would the weight 
of a single brick be sufficient to overcome the in- 
stinct of self-preservation which might assert itself 
at the last moment ? Probably, since he was weak 
from fasting, and would be encumbered with his 
clothing. Then another suggestion came to torment 
him : If he should tie the brick to his feet, as he 
had thought to, the water might not be deep enough, 
after aU. Consequently, he must fasten it about 


L.ofC. 


100 


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Ms neck. And thereupon he had a fit of creeping 
horror at the thought of drowning with his face 
dragged down into the ooze and shme of the 
bottom. 

Oddly enough, when he came to the brink of the 
pool these things ceased to trouble Mm ; though even 
there it was impossible to turn the current of thought 
into a refiective channel. He made the effort for 
decency’s sake. It was not meet that a thinking 
being should go out of life like the brutes that 
perish ; without a thought for the past with its lacks 
and havings, or the future with its untried possi- 
bilities. But the effort returned to him void, and 
presently he stumbled upon the reason : the premed- 
itated fact of self-murder shut him off alike from 
repentance for what had gone before, and from hope 
in what should come after. 

Very good, he said; and flung himself down to 
make the most of the present. He was faint and 
weary, and it would be ill to drown a tired body. 
There was no moon, but the midsummer night was 
clear and still. The stars burned steadily overhead, 
and there was a soft light abroad which seemed to 
be a part of the atmosphere. Over in the west the 
black bulk of the range rose up to meet the sky ; 
and poised above one of the highest peaks the planet 
Mars swung to its setting. Jeffard marked it, say- 
ing it should be his executioner ; that when the rosy 
point of light should touch the black sky-line, he 
would rise up and go to his place. 

MeanwMle it was soothing to lie stretched out 


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upon the warm earth with no human future to pre- 
figure, and no past insistent enough to disturb one 
with its annals. And there was still the present, 
with its soft light and its dim hemisphere of sky ; 
its balmy air and its vague and shadowy horizon. 
It was good to be alone with nature in these last 
few moments ; to have done with the tiresome world 
of man’s marring ; to be quit of man’s presence. 

The thought had scarcely shaped itself when it 
was made of none effect by the appearance of a man 
at the top of the little knoll. The intruder came 
straight on, as if in no doubt as to his purpose, and 
sitting down on the end of the plank bridge, pro- 
ceeded to fill and hght his pipe without saying a 
word. Jeffard caught a glimpse of a bearded face 
by the fiare of the match, and said, “ Oh, it ’s you 
again, is it ? ” 

“Right you are, pardner. Hope I ain’t in- 
trudin’.” 

“ I suppose you have as good a right here as I 
have. But I might suggest that the night is fine 
and the world large, and that there are times when 
a man has no use for his fellows.” 

The new-comer smoked in silence for a full minute 
before he removed his pipe to say : — 

“ That ’s a sort of a gilt-edged invitation for me 
to mog off, ain’t it? All right; I’ll go pretty 
middlin’ quick ; but I ’ve been fool enough to tramp 
somewheres nigh ten mile behind you to-night for to 
get a show to say what ’s on my mind ; wher’fore, 
I ’ll say it first and vamoose afte’wards.” 


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Jeffard gave him leave, watching the narrowing 
margin between the star and the mountain-top. 

“ Well, h’iled down, it ’s just about this: I know 
what you ’re out yere for, — seen it in your eye back 
yonder on the street corner, — but I says to myself, 
‘ Jim Garvin, you go kinder slow ; it ain’t none 
o’ your business. When a man takes a mill-run o’ 
hisself and finds out the claim ain’t worth workin’ 
no longer, w’y, it ’s his funeral, and none o’ yourn.’ 
And then again I says to myself, ‘ Maybe that there 
feUer hain’t got nary ’nother claim — leastwise, not 
as he knows of,’ and so I foUered you, aU over the 
blame’ town and out yere.” 

Jeffard made no reply, and the intruder went on. 

“ ’Course, you understand I ain’t a^mixin’ up any 
in your business, not if I know it. You just listen 
at what I ’m goin’ to say, and then if you want to 
go ahead, w’y, all right, do it ; and I ’ll loan you 
my gun so ’t you won’t have to get yourseK wet in 
cold water. Is that about right ? ” 

“ Go on,” said Jeffard. 

“ WeU, it ’s this-a-way ; I ’m off on a prospectin’ 
tower to-morrow. Slowed in ever’ last thing I had, 
and took a grub-stake, same as heretofore. Now 
the old man that puts up the grub-stake, he says, 
says he, ‘ Jim, you ’ll want a pardner. It ’s gettin’ 
pretty late in the season, and you won’t stand no 
kind of a chance goin’ alone.’ ‘ Right you are,’ says 
I, ‘ and I ’U pick up some feller on the range as I go 
in.’ ‘ Good enough,’ says he. ‘ I ’ll make this here 
order big enough to stake the two of you.’ That ’s 


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* 

the whole lay-out, and you ’re the pardner, if you 
say the word. You don’t know beans about me, 
and I don’t know you from Adam’s off ox, so that ’s 
a stand-off. What do you say ? ” 

Jeffard did not answer until there was but a bare 
thread of sky between the star and the peak. Then 
he said : “ Do you happen to have a coin of any 
kind about you ? ” 

Garvin tossed a dollar across to him, and Jeffard 
spun it. Then he found that he had no match, and 
asked the miner to give him one. Garvin watched 
him curiously as he bent over the coin and struck 
the match. 

“ The luck ’s against me — it ’s heads,” he an- 
nounced gravely. “ I ’U go with you.” 

Garvin rose and stretched himself stiffly. 

“ You ’re a cool one,” he commented. “ What if 
it ’d been tails ? ” 

Jeffard got up and kicked the brick into the 
pond. “ In that case I should have been obliged to 
ask you to lend me your pistol. Let ’s go back to 
town and get something to eat with that dollar. I 
have n’t had anything since last night.” 


CHAPTER XI 


After toiling all night through black gorges and 
over unspeakable mountain passes, the narrow-gauge 
train from Denver, headed by two pygmy locomo- 
tives, came out into daylight, sunshine, and wider 
horizons at Alta Vista. In the sleeping-car three 
sections had been transformed by the drowsy porter 
into daytime smugness, and three persons — two of 
them in deference to the enthusiasm of the tliird — 
were up and dressed. 

“ Is n’t it all perfectly indescribable ? ” Myra 
was saying, when the engineer of one of the pyg- 
mies sounded the whistle for the station. “ Do you 
know, I could n’t go to sleep for hours last night, 
late as it was. I put up the window curtain and 
piled the pillows in the corner so I could look out. 
The sky was like a great inverted bowl lined with 
black velvet and spangled with diamonds, circling 
around us as we darted around the curves. And 
in the open places there was always a solemn pro- 
cession of cliffs and peaks, marching with us some- 
times, and then turning to slip past again when the 
bowl whirled the other way. Oh, but it was grand ! ” 

“ I ’m glad it lays hold of you,” said Connie, who 
was loyally jealous for the scenic renown of her 
native Colorado. “ Now you know why I would n’t 


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let you go on any of those breathless little one-day 
excursions from Denver. They just take you up in 
a balloon, give you a glimpse while you gasp, and 
drop you without a parachute. The tourist people 
all make them, you know, — it ’s in the itinerary, 
with a coupon in the cute little morocco-bound book 
of tickets, — and they come back wild-eyed and 
desperate, and go without their suppers to scribble 
incoherent notes about the ‘ Cache la Platte ’ and 
‘ Clear Poudre Canyon,’ and other ridiculous things. 
It would be funny if it was n’t so exasperating.” 

Myra nodded. “ I ’m beginning to ‘ savez,’ as 
Mr. Bartrow would say. By the way, is n’t this 
the place where he was to meet us ? — Why, yes ; 
there he is now ! ” She waved her hand and strug- 
gled with the window-latch as the train drew up to 
the platform. 

He was with them in a moment, carrying a towel- 
covered basket, and a tin coffee-pot which he waved 
gingerly by way of salutation. 

“ The top o’ the morning to you all,” he said, 
beaming genially. “ I was afraid you would n’t be 
up, and then my hot coffee would be cold coffee, 
and I ’d get myself disliked.” Then to the drowsy 
porter : “ John, you scoundrel, get us a table be- 
fore I break you m two and throw you out of the 
window.” 

The table was promptly forthcoming, and Myra 
made room in the narrow seat for Bartrow. 

“ Excuse me,” he begged, laughing, “ I ’d like to, 
but J can’t. Somebody ’s got to stand up and do 


106 


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the swing-rack act with this coffee-pot. J ust unload 
that basket, will you, Elliott, and I ’ll play head 
waiter while you set the table.” 

The breakfast was good, and there was a most 
astonishing variety. Moreover the coffee rose to a 
degree of excellence which more than atoned for the 
admixture of condensed milk in lieu of cream, and 
for the slight resinous taste imparted by the new tin 
cups. Bartrow apologized for the cups. 

“ You see, I left the mine rather middling early 
this morning, and packed things in a hurry. When 
I was making the coffee over Jim Bryant’s stove 
here at Alta Vista, it struck me all at once that I ’d 
forgotten the cups. The train was in sight, and 
Jim had only one, and that had n’t been washed for 
a month of Sundays. Maybe you think I was n’t 
stampeded for about a minute.” 

Connie laughed. “ I suppose you went out and 
robbed somebody.” 

“ That ’s what I did ; made a break for the store, 
and found it locked up, of course. I had to smash 
a window to get what I wanted.” 

“ Why, you lawless man! ” protested Myra, trying 
to make room on the narrow table for the contents 
of the inexhaustible basket. “ Where in the world 
did you get such a variety of things ? ” 

“ Canned goods,” Connie cut in maliciously ; “ all 
canned goods, put out in dishes so you won’t be 
reminded of the tinny taste. Everybody lives on 
canned goods in the mountains.” 

“ Connie, you make me tired,” Bartrow retorted, 


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107 


bracing himself as the train whisked around a sharp 
curve. “ Just dig a little deeper and get out that 
platter of trout ; they ’ve never seen the inside of a 
can.” 

“ Never mind what Connie says ; she is n’t re- 
sponsible,” said Myra. “ The breakfast is just as 
good as it can be. Besides, you know you promised 
us that we should live just as you do if we ’d visit 
the Little Myriad. I wish you ’d put that coffee-pot 
on the floor and sit down with us.” 

Bartrow tried it, and found it possible ; after 
which the talk became general and cheerful over the 
resinous coffee cups and the lurching dishes. In a 
lull Elliott asked how the Little Myriad was going 
on. 

“ Good enough for anybody,” rejoined Bartrow, 
with enthusiasm alert. “ Lead opens out better 
every day, and we ’re in only about seventy-five 
feet.” 

“ No pay-dirt yet, of course,” said the older man. 

“Well, hardly ; not yet. I ’m figuring on a hun- 
dred and fifty feet of development work at the very 
least before we begin to take out pay.” 

“ Mr. Bartrow, don’t you remember that another 
thing you promised was that you wouldn’t talk 
mineral-English before me without explaining it ? ” 
Myra broke in. “ I want to know ” — An un- 
expected plunge of the car made her grasp at the 
coffee cup, and Connie slipped deftly into the break. 

“And it shall know, bless its inquisitive little 
soul ! It shall be stuffed with information like a fat 


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little pillow with feathers. But not here, cuzzy 
dear. W ait till we ’re on the ground, and then I ’ll 
go off out of hearing, and Dick may turn himself 
into a glossary, or an intelligence office, or a per- 
sonal conductor, or anything else you ’d like to have 
him.” 

Bartrow looked unspeakable things, and put dowK 
his knife and fork to say, “ Connie, you ’re a — 
a ” — 

“ Brute, Dickie ; say it right out, and don’t spare 
me on Myra’s account. She rather enjoys it ; she 
loves to hear people abuse me.” 

“ Connie, you are perfectly incorrigible,” said 
Myra severely. “ With your poor people you are 
an angel of light, but with your friends ” — 

“ I ’m an angel of darkness. That ’s right, cuzzy 
dear ; pile it on, I ’m young and strong. Poppa, 
can’t you think of something mean to say about me ? 
Do try, please.” 

Bartrow grinned ; and Elliott, who knew his 
daughter’s vagaries and delighted in them, laughed 
outright. Constance made a face across the table 
at her cousin, and said, “Now talk mines, if you 
can.” 

“ I shall,” asserted Myra calmly. “ Mr. Bartrow, 
how did you ever come to caU your mine the ‘ Little 
Myriad’?” 

If the bottom had suddenly dropped out of his 
coffee cup, Bartrow could not have been more dis- 
concerted. Constance, who was in his secret, 
laughed gleefully, and clapped her hands. 


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109 


“ Tell her, Dick •, tell her all about it. If you 
don’t I shaU.” 

Bartrow stammered and stumbled until Connie 
went into ecstasies of mischievous delight. After 
two or three helpless beginnings, he said, rather 
tamely, “ I thought it was a pretty name.” 

“ But it ’s so odd ; a myriad is many, and a mine 
is only one.” 

“ Oh, the meaning did n’t have anything to do 
with it,” rejoined Bartrow, going straight to his own 
discomfiture with refreshing candor. “ It was the 
— the suggestion ; the similarity ; the — By Jove ! 
we ’re there at last ; this is the mine switch.” 

The exclamation was a heartfelt thanksgiving, 
and in the confusion of debarking the perilous topic 
was safely eluded. It was a sharp climb of some 
distance from the railway track to the mine, and 
Elliott developed unsuspected reserves of tact by 
leading the way with Miss Van Vetter, leaving Bar- 
trow to follow with Constance. When they had 
lagged sufficiently behind the others, and were yet 
out of earshot of the men who were following with 
the luggage, Bartrow went back to the unexploded 
petard. 

“ Connie, you ’ve just got to help me out now,” 
he declared. “ What shall I teU her if she tackles 
me again ? ” 

“ Tell her the truth.” 

‘‘I don’t dare to.” 

“ Then tell her a fib. But no — on second 
thought I should n’t do that, if I were you ; you ’d 


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only make a mess of it. I ’ll tell you what to do : 
just fight shy of it till I can get her to myseK. I 
promise you she ’ll never ask you about the Little 
Myriad’s christening again as long as she lives.” 

“ Thank you,” said Bartrow, with the air of a re- 
prieved criminal ; and then dubiously : “ See here, 
Connie, how are you going to do it ? No monkey 
business, you know.” 

“ Not a single, solitary monkey,” she answered so 
soberly that Bartrow forgot his suspicions, and 
plunged into another subject which was also near 
to his heart. 

“ About Jeffard ; how did you come to think he 
had shot himself ? ” 

“ It was only one of those suppositions you think 
you have verified when you’ve only been playing 
blind-man’s bulf with it. The similarity of names 
misled me at first.” 

“ But afterward you merely wired that you were 
mistaken. Was that another supposition ? ” 

“ Oh, no ; I saw him and talked with him.” 

“The mischief you did! What did he have to 
say for himself ? ” 

“Not much that wiU bear repeating. I’m too 
sorry for him to want to talk about it, Dick.” 

Bartrow wondered, and kept his wonder to him- 
self. What he said was in the nature of worldly 
wisdom. 

“Jeffard ’ll come out aU right in the end. He’s 
as obstinate as a pig, but that’s the only swinish 
thing about him. I ’m afraid he ’ll have to go 


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111 


through the stamp-mill and get himself pulverized ; 
hut when it comes to the clean-up there’ll he more 
good metal than tailings. Don’t you think so ? ” 

“ How should I know ? ” queried Constance. 

“ I did n’t ask you what you know ; I asked what 
you thought about it.” 

“You forget that we ’ve met only two or three 
times.” 

“ I don’t forget anything. But I know you can 
size a man up while the rest of us are trying to get 
acquainted with him. Don’t you believe that Jef- 
fard will come out all right in the end ? ” 

She was silent for a minute or two, and when she 
answered there was a tremulous note in her voice 
which was new to Bartrow. 

“ I ’m afraid he has made that and everything 
else impossible, Dick. I told you I had seen him 
and talked with him ; that was the day after 1 tele- 
graphed you about the suicide, nearly two months 
ago. From that day to this he has not been seen 
or heard of in Denver, so far as Tommie can find 
out.” 

“ Pshaw ! Then you think he has taken the short 
cut out of it, after all?” 

“ I don’t know what to think,” said Constance ; 
and as they were at the top of the steep trail, the 
subject was dropped. 

On the whole, Connie’s apprehensions that her 
cousin’s urban upbringing might make her a difficult 
guest for the young miner were apparently ground- 
less. Miss Van Vetter rhapsodized over the scenery ; 


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waded cheerfully through the dripping tunnel of the 
Little Myriad to the very heading, in order to see 
with her own eyes the vein of mineral; thought 
Bartrow’s three-room log cabin was good enough for 
any one; and ate the dishes of Wun Ling’s pre- 
paring as though a Chinese cook were a necessary 
adjunct to every well regulated household. When 
the first day of exhilarating sight-seeing came to an 
end, and the two young women were together in 
their room, Connie bethought her of her promise to 
Bartrow. 

“By the way, Myra, did you find out how the 
Little Myriad came by its name ? ” she asked. 

“No; I forgot to ask Mr. Bartrow again.” 

“ I can tell you, if you ’d really like to know.” 

“ Well?” 

“ He was going to call it the ‘ Myra,’ and he asked 
me if I thought you’d object. I told him you 
would, — most emphatically. Then he said he would 
call it the ‘ Myriad,’ because that was the only word 
he could think of that was anything like Myra.” 

Miss Van Yetter was arranging her hair before 
the small mirror at the other end of the room, and 
Constance waited long for her rejoinder. When it 
came it was rather irrelevant. 

“ I ’ve heard of people who could read your 
thoughts better than you could think them,” she 
said ; and Connie was too sleepy to strike back. 


CHAPTER XII 


.For a week after the arrival of his visitors, Bar- 
trow had scant time and less inclination for trouble- 
ment about such purely mundane affairs as the 
driving of tunnels and the incidental acquisition of 
wealth thereby. There were burro journeys to the 
top of the pass, and to the sheer cliff known to 
the prosaic frontiersmen as the devil’s jumping-off- 
place ; excursions afoot down the mountain to the 
cool depths of Chipeta Canyon, and to Silver Lake 
beyond the shrugged shoulder of Lost Creek Moun- 
tain ; and finally there was a breath-cutting climb to 
the snow-patched summit of El Reposo, undertaken 
for the express purpose of enabling Myra Van Vetter 
to say that she had been where there was reason to 
presume that no human being had preceded her. 

These things three of them did, leaving Stephen 
Elliott to his own devices, in accordance with the 
set terms upon which he had consented to father the 
parti carre. “ Go on and chmb your mountains and 
just leave me out,” he would say, when the prepara^ 
tions were making for the day’s jaunt. “ I ’ve had 
my share of it, off and on, while I was hunting for 
something I had n’t lost. Dick, here, has n’t any 
better sense than to humor you ; but you ’d tramp 
mighty little if I had to go along.” 


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Whereupon he would plant his chair for the day 
upon the slab-floored porch of the cabin, tilt it to a 
comfortable angle against the wall, and while away 
the hours smoking a mellow pipe and reading the 
day-old Denver paper painstakingly, from the top of 
the title page to the bottom of the last want column. 

Thus the crystalline autumn days winged their 
flight, and Bartrow squired the two young women 
hither and yon, and finally to the top of El Beposo, 
as recorded. This excursion was the climax, from a 
scenic point of view ; and Myra, having long since 
exhausted her vocabulary of superlatives, was un- 
usually silent. 

“ What ’s come over you ? are you gorged with 
mountains?” queried Connie sympathetically, slip- 
ping her arm around her cousin’s waist. 

“ It is n’t that ; it ’s just that 1 ’m too full for 
utterance, I think; or perhaps I should say too 
empty of words to do it justice. How flippantly 
trivial everything human seems in the face of such a 
landscape ! Here are we, three inconsequent atoms, 
standing brazenly in the face of great nature, and 
trying to gather some notion of the infinite into our 
finite little souls. It’s sheer impertinence.” 

“They won’t mind,” rejoined Bartrow, with a 
comprehensive gesture, meant to include the moun- 
tains, singular and collective ; “ they ’re used to it — 
the impertinence, I mean. What you see is the face 
of nature, as you say, and man does n’t seem to be 
in it. Just the same, there is a small army of men 
scattered among these overgrown hiUs, each with an 


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115 


inquisitive pick and shovel, backed by hardihood 
enough to dare anything for the sake of adding 
something to the wealth of the world.’' 

Myra turned her back on the prospect and 
searched Bartrow’s eyes in a way to make him won- 
der what was wrong with his well-turned little 
speech. 

“ That is the first insincere thing I ever heard you 
say,” she asserted. “ As if you did n’t know that 
not one of these men ever wastes a second thought 
upon the world or the people in it, or upon anything 
outside of his own little circle of ambitions and 
cravings ! ” 

“ You ’re quite right,” admitted Bartrow, abashed 
and more than willing to stand corrected in any field 
entered by Miss Van Vetter; but Constance took 
up the cudgels on the other side. 

“You make me exceedingly weary, you two,” 
she said, with seraphic sweetness. “Neither of you 
knows what you are talking about half the time, and 
when you do, it is n’t worth telling. Now listen to 
me while I show you how ridiculous you are,” — 
Bartrow sat down on a flat-topped boulder, and 
made a dumb show of stopping his ears, — “I con- 
tend that nearly every one of these poor prospec- 
tors you ’ve been maligning is a perfect monument 
of unselfishness. He is working and starving and 
hoping and enduring for somebody else in nine cases 
out of ten. It ’s a wife, or a family, or an old father 
or mother, or the mortgage on the farm, or some 
other good thing.” 


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Myra made a snowball and threw it at Connie 
the eloquent. “ I think El Reposo is misnamed,” 
she contended. “ It ought to be called the Mount 
of Perversity. Mr. Bartrow, you are sitting upon 
the table, which is very undignified. Please move 
and let us see what Wun Ling has stowed away in 
the haversack.” 

They spread their luncheon on the flat-topped 
boulder, and fell upon it like the hungry wayfarers 
that they were, calling it a sky banquet, and drinking 
Wun Ling’s health in a bottle of cold tea. With 
satiety came thoughts of the descent, and Myra 
pleaded piteously for a change of route. 

“ I shall never get down the way we came up 
in the wide, wide world, — not ahve,” she asserted. 
“ With the view in prospect, I believe I could climb 
the Matterhorn ; but getting down is quite another 
matter. Can’t we go around some other way ? ” 

Bartrow thought it possible ; but since Miss Van 
Vetter had particularly desired to stand upon the 
summit of a hitherto imexplored peak, he was not 
sure. 

“But we can try,” said Myra. “At the worst 
we can^ come back and creep down the way we came 
up.” 

Bartrow glanced at his watch, and focused the 
field-glass on a diaphanous cloud slipping stealthily 
across the serrated summits of the main range away 
to the westward. 

“ Yes, we can do that, if we have time,” he as- 
sented. “But I’m a little afraid of the weather. 


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117 


That cloud may miss us by twenty miles ; and then 
again, it may take a straight shoot across the valley 
and make us very wet and uncomfortable.” 

Constance came to the rescue with a compromise. 

“ You go and prospect for a new trail, Dick, and 
we ’ll stay here. If you find one you can come back 
for us, and if you don’t we’ll be fresh for the 
scramble down the other way.” 

Bartrow said it was well, and immediately set - 
about putting the suggestion into effect. When 
he was fairly out of sight over the curvature of El 
Reposo’s mighty shoulder, Myra said : — 

“ He ’s good, is n’t he? ” 

“ He is a man among men, Myra ; a man to tie 
to, as we say here in Colorado.” 

They were sitting together on the flat boulder, 
and Miss Van Vetter stole a side glance at her 
cousin’s profile. “ You have known him a long time, 
have n’t you, Connie ? ” 

“ Almost ever since I can remember. I ’m Colo- 
rado-born, you know, and he is n’t ; but he came 
across the plains in the days of the ox-teams, when 
he was a little feUow, and the first work he ever 
did was for poppa, when we lived on the ranch below 
Golden."’ 

“ He is a self-made man, is n’t he ? ” 

“ Don’t say that, Myra, please. I hate the word. 
God makes us, and circumstances or our own foolish- 
ness mar us. But Dick is self-educated, so far as 
he is educated at aU. He was a homeless waif when 
he first saw the Rockies. His father died in the 


118 


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middle of the trip across the plains, and his mother 
lived only long enough to have her grave dug some 
two hundred miles farther west. The others took 
care of Dick and brought him along with them to 
Colorado because there was n’t anything else to do ; 
and since, Dick has made his own way, doing any 
honest thing that came to his hand.” 

“ He could n’t do the other kind,” Myra averred. 
“ But you spoke of his education as if he had n’t 
any. I suppose that was one of your ‘ exuberances,’ 
as Uncle Stephen calls them. Mr. Bartrow is cer- 
tainly anything but illiterate.” 

“ No, he is n’t that, though he has no education of 
the kind you effete people have in mind when you 
speU the word with a capital — the kind with a 
Greek-letter-badge and coUege-yeU attachment. If 
you should tell him you had been to Bryn Mawr, he 
would probably take it to be some summer resort he 
had n’t heard of. But that is n’t saying he is stupid. 
He could give the man with the yell a lot of infor- 
mation on a good many subjects. Poppa says he 
was always an earnest little lad ; always reading 
everything he could get hold of — which was n’t 
very much in the early days, as you may imagine.” 

“ Nevertheless, he seems to be getting on in the 
world,” said Miss Van Vetter. “ Your father says 
the Little Myriad is a promising mine.” 

There was more pathos than mirth in the smile 
which flitted across Connie’s face. 

“ You ’re new among us yet, Myra. Everjrthing 
with mineral in it is promising to us ; we are cranks 


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119 


pure and simple, on that subject. The Little Myriad 
is promising, of course, — there isn’t an unpro- 
mising mine in the State, for that matter, — but it ’s 
only a promise, as yet. If Dick should reach the 
end of his hundred and fifty feet of development 
without striking pay, he would be a ruined man.” 

“Why couldn’t he keep on until he should 
strike it?” 

“ For the very simple reason that he is working 
on borrowed capital ; and I happen to know that he 
has borrowed about all he can.” 

“ But he believes in the success of the venture, 
absolutely.” 

“ Of course he does ; that is one of the conditions. 
It ’s merely a question of credit with him. If any 
one would lend, Dick would go on borrowing and 
digging until he struck pay-ore or came out on the 
other side of the mountain — and then he ’d think 
he had n’t gone deep enough. That is the pathetic 
side of his character ; he never knows when he ’s 
beaten.” 

“ I should call it the heroic side.” 

“ It is heroic, but it is pathetic, too. It is sure 
to bring him trouble, sooner or later, and Dick is n’t 
one to take trouble lightly. He ’ll go on fighting 
and struggling long after the battle has become 
hopeless, and that makes the sting of defeat so much 
sharper. It makes me want to cry when I think 
what a terrible thing it would be for him if the Lit- 
tle Myriad should go back on its promise.” 

Miss Van Vetter took the field-glass and stood up 


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to watch the storm cloud which was now spreading 
gradually and creeping slowly down the slopes of 
the divide. “ You think a great deal of Mr. Bar- 
trow, don’t you, Connie ? ” 

“ Indeed I do ; he comes next to poppa with me.” 

For so long a time as one might take in saying 
a little prayer at a needful crisis, Myra gave her 
undivided attention to the fleecy blur slipping down 
the side of the main range. Then the strain on her 
eyes filled them with tears, and she put the glass 
back into its case. Constance saw the tears. 

“ Why, Myra ! you ’re crying. What is the 
matter ? ” 

“ I ’m lonesome and homesick, and I long for the 
flesh-pots of Denver ; but it was the glass that made 
me cry. Connie, dear, don’t you think we ’d better 
be going back to town ? ” 

“ Why, yes ; if you are quite ready. But it 
will be a disappointment for Dick. He is counting 
on another week, at least.” 

“ Yes, I know ; and that is why I think we ought 
to go. We are keeping him from his work in the 
mine, and his time is precious.” 

“ Father more so than he gives us to understand, 
I fancy,” Constance assented. “ I suppose you are 
right, Myra, — we ought not to stay; but you’ll 
have to tax your ingenuity to find an excuse that 
will hold water. Dick won’t be satisfied with a 
P. P. C. card.” 

“ Perhaps the chapter of accidents will help us. 
If it does n’t, you must make your father remember 


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121 


that he has urgent business in Denver which won’t 
wait. Can’t you manage it that way? ” 

“ If I can’t, I ’ll ring you in. Poppa would take 
passage for Honolulu to-morrow if he had an idea 
that you ’d like to see the Kanakas ride surf-boards.” 

“ I should much rather not appear in it,” said 
Myra ; and then, with truly feminine inconsistency, 
“ I don’t know why I say that. On the whole, per- 
haps you ’d better say that it ’s my proposal. Then 
Mr. Bartrow wiU set it down to the vagaries of a 
flighty migrant, and he won’t hold spite against his 
old friends.” 

Connie the wise began to wonder if there were 
unplumbed depths in her cousin, — depths which 
Bartrow’s defenseless obviousness had stirred to his 
sparing ; but she drove the thought out as unworthy. 
Myra had been kind to Dick, certainly, but she had 
never encouraged him. There might well be an ac- 
cepted lover in the dim Philadelphia background for 
aught Mjrra had said or done to evince the contrary. 
In which case — Connie the wise became Connie the 
pitiful in the turning of a leaf — poor Dick! At 
that moment, as if the sympathetic thought had 
evoked him, Bartrow came in sight on the lower 
slope of the summit. He was breathing hard when 
he reached them. 

“We can make it all right,” he said, slinging the 
glass and the haversack, “ but it ’ll add three or four 
miles. It ’s a roundabout way, and it will take us 
into the head of Little Myriad Gulch. If you ’re 
ready we ’ll get a quick move. That storm is head- 


122 


THE HELPERS 


ing straight for us, and we ’ll be in luck if we don’t 
come in for a soaking.” 

El Reposo is a bald mountain, and its tonsure is 
fringed with a heavy forest growth which stops 
abruptly at timber-line. Halfway to the head of 
the gulch the new trail ended in a tangle of fallen 
trees, — the debris of an ancient snowslide, — and 
much valuable time was lost in skirting the obstacle. 
Bartrow glanced over his shoulder from time to 
time, and finally said, “There it comes, with a 
vengeance ! ” 

The exclamation was ill-timed. Myra turned and 
stopped to watch the fleecy curtain of vapor shroud- 
ing the great bald summit they had just quitted. 
Bartrow sought to possess his soul in patience. 

“ Is n’t it grand ! ” she said, with kindling enthu- 
siasm. 

“ Yes ; grand and wet. If you ’ll excuse me. 
Miss Myra, I think we ’d better run for it.” 

They ran for it accordingly, Connie in the lead 
like the free-limbed daughter of the altitudes that 
she was, and Bartrow and Miss Van Vetter hand 
in hand like joyous children for whom self-conscious- 
ness is not. From the beginning of the wild race 
down the slopes the wetting seemed momentarily 
imminent; none the less, they managed to reach 
the gulch dryshod. Inasmuch as their course down 
the ravine was in a direction nearly opposite to the 
sweep of the wind, it soon took them beyond the 
storm zone, and they stopped to listen to the echoes 
of nature’s battle reverberating from the crags of the 

\ 




THE HELPERS 


123 


higher levels. The writhing of the great firs in 
the grasp of the wind came to their ears like the 
clashing of miniature breakers on a tideless shore ; 
and the booming of the thunder was minified by the 
rare atmosphere into a sound not unlike the distant 
firing of cannon. While they paused, Myra climbed 
to the top of a water-worn boulder in the bed of the 
ravine to get a better point of view, and from this 
elevation she could see the forest at the head of the 
gulch. 

“ Oh, Connie ! ” she cried, “ climb up here, quick ! 
It ’s a cyclone ! ” 

Bartrow threw up his head like a startled animal. 
There was a steady roar in the air which was not 
of the thunder. 

“ Cyclone nothing ! ” he yeUed. “It’s a cloud- 
burst! Stay where you are, for your life, Miss 
Myra ! ” 

Even as he spoke the roar deepened until the 
vibration of it shook the solid earth, and a dark 
mass of water, turbid and debris-laden, shot from 
the head of the gulch and swept down the ravine. 
Bartrow lived an anguished lifetime in an instant 
of hesitation. To save the woman he loved was to 
sacrifice Constance. To help Connie first was to 
take the desperate chance that Myra would be safe 
till he could reach her. 

There was no time for the nice weighing of 
possibilities ; and Kichard Bartrow was a man of 
action before all else. Winding an arm about 
Constance, he dashed out of the ravine with her. 


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getting back to Myra three seconds in advance of 
the boulder-laden flood. There was time enough, 
but none to spare. A tree gave him an anchorage 
on the bank above her ; she sprang toward him at 
the word of command ; and he plucked her up out 
of the reach of the foaming torrent which snapped 
at her and overturned the great rock upon which she 
had been standing. 

After which narrow escape they sat together on 
the slope of safety and watched the subsiding flood, 
laughing over the “ stampede,” as Connie called it, 
with all the reckless hardihood of youth and good 
spirits. 

“ I would n’t have missed seeing it for anything in 
the world,” declared the enthusiast. “ I had plenty 
of time to get out of the way, but I could n’t help 
waiting to see how it would look, coming over that 
last cliff up there.” 

“ Dick did n’t give me a chance to see anything,” 
Connie complained. “ He whisked me out of the 
way as if I ’d been a naughty little girl caught play- 
ing with the fire.” 

Bartrow examined the field-glass to see if it had 
suffered in the scramble. It was unbroken, and he 
put it back into the case with a sigh of relief. 

“ If you two had smashed that glass between you, 
I don’t know what I should have done,” he said; 
whereat they all laughed again and took up the line 
of march for the mine. 

That evening, after supper, the four of them were 
on the porch of the three-roomed cabin, enjoying 


V 


THE HELPERS 


125 


the sunset. Constance had spoken to her father 
about the return to Denver, and Stephen Elliott was 
racking his brain for some excuse reasonable enough 
to satisfy Bartrow, when a man came up the trail 
from the direction of Alta Vista. It was Bryant, 
the station agent; and he was the bearer of a 
telegram addressed to Constance. She read it and 
gave it to Bartrow. The operator had taken it 
literally, and it was a small study in phonetics. 

“ Shees gaun an got inter trubbel. P. Grims 
swipt her masheen. Wot shel I do. 

“T. Keagan.” 

Bartrow smiled and handed the message back. 
« That ’s Tommie, I take it. What ’s it about ? ” 

“ It ’s a young woman I ’ve been trying to help. 
They are persecuting her again, and I ’ll have to go 
back as quickly as I can.” 

“ That ’s bad,” said Bartrow ; but Connie’s father 
looked greatly relieved, and, filling his pipe, began 
to burn incense to the kindly god of chance. 

After a time, Bartrow asked, “ When ? ” 

Connie’s gaze was on the sunset, but her thoughts 
were miles away in a humble cottage in West 
Denver where she had thought Margaret would be 
safely hidden from the spoiler. 

“ I think we ’d better go now — to-night. You 
can flag the train at the mine switch, can’t you?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ And you can get ready, can’t you, Myra ? ” 


126 


THE HELPERS 


“ Certainly ; it won’t take me long to pack. If 
you ’ll excuse me I ’ll go and do it now, and get it 
off my mind.” 

When Myra had gone in, Bartrow took the mes- 
sage and read it again. “ This is no woman’s job,” 
he objected. “Let me go down with you and 
straighten it out.” 

“ No, you must n’t, Dick ; you have lost a clear 
week as it is.” 

She rose and went to the end of the porch, 
whither he presently followed her. “ You ’ll need a 
man,” he insisted. 

“ I shall have poppa.” 

“ Yes, but he ’s no good — only to pay the 
biUs.” 

“No matter; I shall get along all right.” 

“ That ’s straight, js it ? ” 

“ Yes, I mean it.” 

“ AU right ; you ’re the doctor. But you must 
wire me if you need me.” 

An hour later the visitors had said good-by to 
Bartrow and the Little Myriad, and were on their 
way down the canyon in the miniature sleeping-car. 
Myra pleaded weariness and had her berth made 
down early. Nevertheless, she lay awake far into 
the night gazing out at the rotating heavens and 
the silent procession of peaks and precipices. For 
a background the shifting scene held two irrelevant 
pictures ; one, freshly etched, reproducing the little 
drama of the cloud-burst; the other a memory of 
something she had read, — a story in which a man, 


THE HELPERS 127 

two women, an overturned boat, and a storm-lashed 
lake figured as the persons and properties. 

“ He knew which he loved — which to save first 
— when the crux came,” she said softly to her 
pillow, “ and the other girl was fortunate not to 
have drowned.” And at that moment a certain 
well-to-do gentleman of middle age in a far-away city 
on the Atlantic seaboard was nearer the goal of his 
wishes than he had ever been before. 

In the mean time, Bartrow had an inspiration 
which was importunate enough to send him afoot to 
Alta Vista in the wake of the swinging passenger 
train. It found voice in a mandatory telegram to 
Lansdale, telling him to caU at once upon Miss 
Constance Elliott, to present the message as his 
credential, and to place himself at her service in 
any required capacity, from man-at-arms to attorney- 
at-law. 


CHAPTER XIII 


In his westward sweep over the Titanic play- 
ground of farther Colorado, the sun looks down into 
a narrow valley through which tumbles a brawling 
stream whose waters, snow-born within rifle-shot, 
go to swell the canyoned flood of the Gunnison 
River. Fir-clad mountains, sombre green to timber- 
line and fallow dun or dazzling white above it, 
according to the season, stand like a cordon of 
mighty sentinels around and about ; and the foot of 
civilized man treading the sward of the park-like 
valley must first have measured many weary miles 
of the mountain wilderness. 

Notwithstanding its apparent inaccessibility, and 
its remoteness from any hoof-worn trail, the valley 
had once been inhabited. The evidences were a 
rude log cabin, with its slab door hanging by a 
single leathern hinge, buttressing a weathered cliff 
on the western bank of the stream ; and, in the 
opposing mountain slope, a timbered opening 
bearded with a gray dump of debris, marking the 
entrance to a prospect tunnel. 

Cabin and tunnel were both the handiwork of 
James Garvin. On one of his many prospecting 
tours he had penetrated to the shut-in valley ; and 
finding a promise of mineral deposits in the slopes 


THE HELPERS 


129 


of the sentinel mountains, had gone into permanent 
camp and driven the prospect tunnel into the rocky 
hillside. When he had done something more than 
the development work necessary to hold the claim, 
two things conspired to drive him forth of the valley. 
His provisions ran low ; and the indications in the 
tunnel, which had pointed to a silver-bearing lode of 
graphic tellurium, changed suddenly at a “ dike ” in 
the strata, and disappeared altogether. 

Garvin was a stubborn man, and the toxin of the 
prospector’s fever was in his blood. Wherefore he 
put himself upon siege rations and delved against 
time. When he had baked his last skillet of pan- 
bread and fired his last charge of dynamite in the 
heading, the dike was stiU unpenetrated. After 
that, there was nothing for it but retreat ; and he 
reluctantly broke camp and left the valley, meaning 
to return when he could. 

Two years elapsed and the opportunity still tar- 
ried ; but Garvin kept the shut-in valley in mind, 
and it was thitherward he turned his face when 
Stephen Elliott’s liberal “ grub - stake,” and the 
hastily formed partnership with Jeffard, provided 
the means and the help necessary to sink a shaft. 

It was in the afternoon of a cloudless August 
day that Jeffard had his first glimpse of the park- 
like valley lying in the lap of the sentinel moun- 
tains. The air was crisp, and thin-edged with the 
keen breath of the altitudes, but the untempered 
heat of the sun beat pitilessly upon the heads of 
the two men picking their laborious way over the 


130 


THE HELPERS 


rock-ribbed shoulder of the least precipitous moun- 
tain. 

“Well, pardner, weVe riz the last o’ the hills,” 
quoth Garvin, stepping aside to let the burro, with 
its jangling burden of camp utensils and provisions, 
precede him. “ How d’ you stack up by this time ? ” 

Jeffard’s tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. 
Frantic plunges into the nether depths are not con- 
ducive to good health, moral or physical, and nature 
was exacting the inevitable penalty. For three days 
he had been fighting a losing battle with an augment- 
ing army of iUs, and but for the rough heartening 
of his companion he would have fallen by the way- 
side more than once during the breath-cutting march 
over the mountain passes. Wherefore his answer to 
Garvin’s question was the babblement of despair. 

“I’m a dead man, Garvin. You ’ll only have 
me to bury if you persist in dragging me any farther. 
I ’m done, I teU you.” 

Garvin stroked his stubbly chin and hid his con- 
cern under a ferocious scowl. 

“ No, you ain’t done, not by a long shot. You 
need n’t to think I ’m goin’ to let you play off on me 
that-a-way — with the promised land cuddlin’ down 
yonder in that gulch a-waitin’ for us. Not much, 
Mary Ann. You ’re goin’ to twist the crank o’ 
that there win’lass a-many a time afore you get 
shut o’ me.” 

The burro wagged one ear and sat upon its 
haunches preparatory to a perilous slide down a 
steep place in the trail. Garvin saved the pack by 


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131 


darting forward and anchoring both beast and bur- 
den by main strength. While the big man was 
wrestling with the burro, Jeffard stumbled and fell, 
rose wavering to his knees and fell again, this time 
with his teeth set to stifle a groan. Garvin threw 
the pack-animal with dexterous twitch of its foreleg, 
and hoppled it with a turn of the lariat before going 
back to Jeffard. 

“ Now then, up you come,” he said, trying to 
stand Jeffard upon his feet ; but the sick man col- 
lapsed inertly and sank down again. 

“ Let me alone,” he enjoined, in a sudden trans- 
port of feeble truculence. “ I told you I was done, 
and I am. Can’t you go about your business and 
leave a man to die in peace ? ” 

“ Oh, you be damned,” retorted Garvin cheer- 
fully. “All you need is a little more sand. Get up 
and mog along now, ’fore I run shy o’ patience and 
thump the everlastin’ daylights out o’ you.” And 
he stooped again and slipped his arm under Jeffard’ s 
shoulders. 

The sick man’s head rocked from side to side. 
“ Don’t,” he groaned, this time in gentl'er protest. 
“ I ’d do it if I could — if only for your sake. But 
it is n’t in me ; I Ve been dying on my feet for the 
last three hours. I could n’t drag myself another 
step if the gates of Heaven stood open down yon- 
der and all hell were yapping at my heels. Go on 
and leave me to fight it out. You can come back 
to-morrow and cover up what the buzzards have 
left.” 


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Garvin straightened up and drew the back of his 
hand across his eyes. 

“ Listen at him ! ” he broke out, in a fine frenzy 
of simulated rage. “ Just listen at the fool idjit 
talk, will you ? And me standin’ over him a-pleadin’ 
like a suckin’ dove ! By crucifer ! if it was n’t 
for throwih’ away good ammynition, I ’d plug him 
one just for his impidence — blame my skin if I 
would n’t ! ” And being frugal of his cartridges, 
Garvin flung himself upon the prostrate burro, 
dragged it to its feet, cast the jangling burden, 
pack-saddle and all, and lifted JefPard astride of the 
diminutive mount. 

‘‘There you are,” he said, with gruff tender- 
ness. “ Now then, just lop your head on my shoul- 
der and lay back ag’inst my arm, and play you was 
a-coastin’ down the hill back o’ the old schoolhouse 
on a greazed streak o’ hghtnin’, with your big 
brother a-holdin’ you on. W e ’ll make it pretty 
middlin’ quick, now, if the canary don’t peg out.” 
And thus they made entrance into the shut-in 
valley, and won across it to the log cabin whose 
door hung* slantwise by the single hinge. 

Then and there began a grim fight for the life of 
a man, with an untutored son of the solitudes, lack- 
ing everything but the will to do, pitted against a 
fierce attack of mountain fever which was aided and 
abetted by the devitalizing effects of Jeffard’s hard 
apprenticeship to evil. In the end the indomitable 
will of the nurse, rather than any conscious effort 
on the part of the patient, won the battle. Garvin 


V 


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133 


cursed Ms luck and swore pathetically as day after 
day of the short mountain summer came and went 
unmarked by any pick-blow on the slopes of the 
mountains of promise ; but his care of the sick man 
was unremitting, and he was brutally tender and 
wratlifuUy soft-hearted by turns until Jeffard was 
well beyond the danger line. 

It was a lambent evening in the final week of 
August when Garvin carried the fever-wasted con- 
valescent to the door of the cabin and propped him 
in a rustic chair builded for the occasion. 

“ How ’s that ? ” he demanded, standing back to 
get the general effect of man and chair. “ Ain’t I 
a jack-leg carpenter, all right ? Now you just brace 
up and swaller all the outdoors you can hold while 
I smoke me a pipe.” 

He sat down on the doorstep and filled and 
lighted his pipe. After a few deep-drawn whiffs, he 
said, “ Don’t tire you none to be a-settin’ up, does 
it?” 

“No.” Jeffard turned slowly and sniffed the 
pungent fragrance of the burning tobacco with a 
vague return of the old craving. “Have you an- 
other pipe ? ” he queried. “ I believe I ’d enjoy a 
whiff or two with you.” 

“Now just listen at that, will you?” Garvin 
growled, masking his joy under a transparent affecta- 
tion of disgust. “Me takin’ care of him like he 
was a new-borned baby, and him a-settin’ there, cool 
as a blizzard, askin’ for a pipe ! If I was n t a 
bloomin’ angel, just waitin’ for my wings to sprout, 


134 


THE HELPERS 


I ’d tell Lirn to go to blazes, that ’s about what I ’d 
do.” 

None the less, he went in and found a clean corn- 
cob, filling it and giving it to Jeffard with a lighted 
match. The convalescent smoked tentatively for a 
few minutes, pausing longer between the whiffs until 
the fire and the tobacco-hunger died out together. 
After which he said what was in his mind. 

“ Garvin, old man, you must begin work to-mor- 
row,” he began. “ I can take care of myself now, 
and in a few days I hope I ’ll be able to take hold 
with you. You’ve lost too much time tinkering 
with me. I ’m not worth it.” 

“We’ll find out about that when we get you 
on to the crank o’ that win’lass,” said Garvin senten- 
tiously. “Man ’s a good deal like a horse, — vaUyble 
accordin’ to location. They tell me that back in 
God’s country, where 1 was raised, horses ain’t worth 
their winter keep since the ’lectric cars come in ; but 
out yere I ’ve seen the time when a no-account, 
gristly little bronco, three parts wire and five parts 
pure cussedness, ’u’d a-been worth his weight in 
buUion.” 

Jeffard picked the application out of the parable, 
and smiled. 

“ You ’ve got your bronco,” he asserted. “ When 
you ’re a little better acquainted with me you ’ll find 
your definition is n’t far wrong. I used to think I 
was a halfway decent sort of feUow, Garvin, but I 
believe the last few months have fiailed all the whole 
wheat out of me, leaving nothing but the musty 
chaff.” 


THE HELPERS 


135 


“ Oh, you be hanged ! ” laughed Garvin, with the 
emphasis heartening. “ You ’re off your feed a few 
lines yet and your blood needs thickenin’, that ’s all. 
I ’ll risk but what you ’ll assay up to grade in the 
mill-run.” 

Silence came and sat between them for a little 
space, holding its own until Jeffard’s eye lighted 
upon the debris-bearded tunnel-opening in the oppo- 
site hillside. 

« What is that?” he asked, pointing the query 
with an emaciated finger. 

“ That ’s my old back number that I was tellin’ 
you about on the way in,” Garvin explained. “ I 
thought I ’d struck a lead o’ tellurides up there, sure, 
but it petered out on me.” 

“ When was that?” Jeffard’s recollection of all 
things connected with the fever-haunted jornada 
across the ranges was misty and fragmentary. 

“ Two year ago this summer,” rejoined the miner ; 
and filling his pipe afresh he retold the story of his 
earlier visit to the valley. 

“ It ’s a dead horse,” he added, by way of con- 
clusion. “ I ought to knowed better. I ’m old 
enough at the business to savvy tellurides when I 
see ’em, and that lead never did look right from the 
start.” 

“ Did you ever locate it?” asked Jeffard. 

“ Not much ! I never got any furder along that-a- 
way than to stake it off and make a map of it.” 
Garvin found a pack of thumbed and grimy papers 
in his pocket and worked his way through it tiU he 


136 


THE HELPERS 


came upon the map. “ You ’re an engineer,” he 
said : “ how ’s that for a jack-leg entry map ? ” 

Jeffard examined the rude sketch and pronounced 
it good enough; after which he folded the paper 
absently and put it in his pocket. Garvin did not 
notice his failure to return it, — if, indeed, he 
thought or cared anything further about it, — and 
went on talking of his own unwisdom in driving a 
tunnel on a lode which did not “ look right.” 

“We’ll know better, this trip,” he asserted, as 
somewhat of a salve to the former hurt. “ We ’ll 
go higher up the gulch and sink a shaft ; that ’s 
about what we ’U do.” 

And this, in the fullness of time, was what they 
did. After a few days, Jeffard was able to inch his 
way by easy stages to the new location ; and by the 
time Garvin had dug and blasted himself into a 
square pit windlass-deep, the convalescent was strong 
enough to take his place at the hoist. 

From the very first, Jeffard was totally unable to 
share Garvin’s enthusiastic faith in the possibilities 
of the new cast for fortune. Ignorant of the first 
principles of practical metal-digging, he was, none 
the less, a fairly good laboratory metallurgist ; while 
Garvin, on the other hand, knew naught of man’s, 
but much of nature’s, book. Hence there arose 
many discussions over the possibilities ; J effard con- 
tending that the silver-bearing lodes of the valley 
were not rich enough to bear pack-train transporta- 
tion to the nearest railway point ; and Garvin cling- 
ing tenaciously to the prospectors’ theory that a 


THE HELPERS 


137 


“ true-fissure ” vein must of necessity prove a very 
Golconda once you Lad gone deep enough into its 
storehouse. 

When all was said, the man of the laboratory 
won a barren victory. At thirty feet the lode in 
the shaft had dwindled to a few knife-blade seams, 
and the last shot fired in the bottom of the excavation 
put an end to the work of exploitation by letting in 
a flood of water. Since they had no means of drain- 
ing the shaft so suddenly transformed into a well, 
Garvin gave over, perforce, but proposed trying 
their luck elsewhere in the valley before seeking a 
new field. Jeffard acquiesced, with the suggestion 
that they save time by prospecting in different 
directions ; and this they did, Garvin taking the 
upper half of the valley and Jeffard the lower. At 
the end of a week, J effard gave up in disgust ; 
and when his companion begged for yet one other 
day, was minded to stay in^ camp and invite his soul 
in idleness until the persevering one should be 
convinced. 

As a matter of course, Garvin’s day multiplied 
itself by three, and Jeffard wore out the interval as 
best he might, tramping the hillsides in the vicinity 
of the cabin to kill time, and smoking uncounted 
pipes on the doorstep in the cool of the day while 
waiting for Garvin’s return. 

It was in the pipe-smoking interregnum of the 
third day that the abandoned tunnel in the opposite 
hillside beckoned to him. Oddly enough, he thought, 
Garvin had never referred to it since the retelling of 


138 


THE HELPERS 


its history in the reminiscent pauses of their first 
outdoor evening together. Jeffard’s eye measured 
the dump appraisively. It was a monument to the 
heroic perseverance of the solitary prospector. 

“ That hole must be thirty or forty feet into the 
hiU,” he mused. “ And to think of his worrying it 
out alone ! ” Here idle curiosity nudged him with 
its blunt elbow, and he rose and knocked the ashes 
from his pipe. “ I believe I ’U go up and have a 
look at it. It ’ll kill another half-hour or so, and 
they ’re beginning to die rather hard.” 

He crossed the stream on Garvin’s ancient foot- 
log, and clambered leisurely to the toe of the dump. 
The snows of two winters had washed the detritus 
free of soil, and Jeffard bent, hand on knee, to look 
for specimens of the ore-bearing rock. 

“ Gangue-rock, most of it, with a sprinkling of 
decomposed quartz along at the last,” he said re- 
flectively. “ The quart* was the dike he struck, I 
suppose. He was wise to give it up. There ’s no 
silver in that stuff.” 

He picked up a bit of the snuff-colored rock and 
crumbled it in his hand. It was quite friable, like 
weathered sandstone, but when the fragment was 
crushed the particles still clung together as if mat- 
ted with invisible threads. Jeffard was too new to 
the business of metal-hunting to suspect the tremen- 
dous significance of the small phenomenon, but he 
was sufficiently curious to gather a double handful 
of the fragments of quartz, meaning to ask Garvin 
if he had noticed the peculiarity. And when he 


THE HELPERS 


139 


had climbed to the tunnel and explored it to its 
rock-littered heading by the light of a sliver splin- 
tered from one of the pitchy logs of the timbering, 
he sauntered back to the cabin beneath the western 
cliff and made a fire over which to prepare supper 
against Garvin’s return. 


CHAPTEK XIV 


Gakvin came into camp late, and Jeffard needed 
not to ask the result of the day’s quest. He 
had cooked the simple supper, and they ate it 
together in silence — the big man too weary and 
dejected to talk, and Jeffard holding his peace in 
deference to Garvin’s mood. Over the pipes on the 
doorstep Jeffard permitted himself a single query. 

“ No go ? ” 

“ Nary,” was the laconic rejoinder. 

Jeffard was the least demonstrative of men, but 
the occasion seemed to ask for something more than 
sympathetic silence. So he said : “ It ’s hard luck ; 
harder for you than for me, I imagine. Somehow, 
I have n’t been able to catch the inspiration of the 
mineral-hunt ; but you have, and you ’ve worked 
hard and earned a better send-off.” 

“ Huh ! far as earnin’ goes, I reckon it ’s a 
stand-off ’twixt the two of us. You ’ve certain’y 
done your share o’ the pullin’ and haulin’, if you 
have been sort o’ like what the boys call a ‘ hoodoo.’ ” 

Jeffard blew a cloud of smoke toward the gray 
rock-beard hanging ghostly beneath the black mouth 
of the excavation in the opposite hillside, and was 
far from taking offense. “ Meaning that I have n’t 
been enthusiastic enough to fill the bill ? ” he asked. 


V 


THE HELPERS 


141 


“ I guess that ’s about it. And it always seemed 
sort o’ cur’ous to me. Money ’d do you a mighty 
sight more good than it would me.” 

Jeffard smoked his pipe out, debating with him- 
seK whether it was worth while to try to explain his 
indifference to his companion. He did try, finally, 
though more for the sake of putting the fact into 
words than in any hope of making it understand- 
able to Garvin. 

“ I ’m afraid it is n’t in me to care very much 
about anything,” he said, at the end of the reflec- 
tive excursion. “ Six months ago I could have 
come out here with you and given you points on 
enthusiasm ; but since then I ’ve lived two or three 
lifetimes. I ’m a very old man, Garvin. One day, 
not so very long ago, if you measure by weeks and 
months, I was young and strong and hopeful, like 
other men ; but instead of burning the candle de- 
cently at the proper end, I made a bonfire of it. 
The fire has gone out now, and I have n’t any other 
candle.” 

The big prospector was good-naturedly incredu- 
lous. “ You ’ve had the fever, and you ’re rattled, 
yet ; that ’s all that ’s the matter with you. You ’ve 
been flat down on your luck, hke one or two of the 
rest of us ; but that ain’t any reason why you can’t 
get up ag’in, is it ? ” 

Jeffard despaired of making it clear to any sim- 
ple-hearted son of the wilderness, but he must needs 
try again. 

“ That is your view of the case, and it would be 


142 


THE HELPERS 


that of others who knew the circumstances as well as 
you do. But it does n’t fit the individual. David 
said he would wash his hands in innocency, and 
perhaps he could, and did — though I doubt it. I 
can’t. When you picked me up that night on the 
shore of the pond, I ’d been wandering around in 
the bottomless pit and had lost my way. I knew 
then I should n’t find it again, and I have n’t. I 
seem to have strayed into a region somewhere be- 
yond the place where the actual brimstone chokes 
you ; but it ’s a barren desert where nothing seems 
quite the same as it used to — where nothing is the 
same, as a matter of fact. Do I make it plain ? ” 

“ You bet you don’t,” responded Garvin, out of 
the depths of cheerful density. “ You ’ve been a 
mile or two out o’ my reach for the last haK-hour ’r 
so. Ther’ ain’t no use a-cryin’ over spilt milk, is 
what I say; and when I go kerfiummix, why, I just 
cuss a few lines and get up and mog along, same as 
heretofore.” 

Jeffard laughed, but there was no mirth in him. 

“ I envy you ; you are a lucky man to be able 
to do it. I wish in my soul I could.” 

“ What ’s the reason you can’t ? ” 

“ That is precisely what I have n’t been able to 
make you understand. But the fact remains. The 
Henry J effard my mother knew is dead and buried. 
In his place has arisen a man who is acquainted 
with evil, and is skeptical about most other things. 
Garvin, if you knew me as well as I know myself, 
you ’d run me out of this valley with a gun before 


THE HELPERS 


143 


you slept. I owe you as heavy a debt of gratitude 
as any one man ever owed another, and yet if your 
welfare stood between the beginning and the end of 
some devil’s service in which I might be commis- 
sioned, you would n’t be safe to sleep in the same 
cabin with me.” 

“ Oh, you be damned,” said the big man, relaps- 
ing into a deeper depth of incredulity. “ You ’ve 
got a devil ’r two, all right, maybe, but they ’re the 
blue kind, and they ’ll soak out in the washin’. 
Fact o’ the matter is, our cussed luck in this yere 
hole in the ground has struck in on you worse ’n it 
has on me. You ’ll be all right when we get some 
place else and strike it rich.” 

Jeffard refilled his pipe and gave over trying to 
define himself in set terms. When next he broke 
silence it was to speak of the impending migra- 
tion. 

“ I suppose we pull out in the morning? ” he said. 

“Might as well. We’ve played the string out 
up yere. Besides, summer ’s gone, and a month of 
fall, and the grub ’s runnin’ shy.” 

“ Where next ? ” inquired Jeffard. 

“ I dunno, hardly. ’T ain’t worth while to strike 
furder in, this late in the season. We ’ve got to be 
makin’ tracks along back t’wards the valley afore 
the snow comes, and that ’ll be pretty quick now. 
What d’ you say to tryin’ some o’ the gulches o’ the 
Mosquito ? ” 

“ An3rwhere you say. I ’m with you — if you 
care to take me after what I ’ve tried to tell you. 


144 


THE HELPERS 


But you ’d much better go alone. You had it right 
a while ago; you have yoked yourself to a Jonah.” 

“ Jonah nothin’ I ” growled the soft-hearted giant. 
“ Nex’ time I set out to devil you, I ’ll drill a hole 
aforehand and put in a pinch o’ dannymite along 
with the joke. Then when I tech it off, you’ll 
know.” 

The moon was riding high in the black . arch of 
the sky, and the gray dump on the opposite moun- 
tain stood out in bold relief. Jeffard rose and 
leaned against the doorpost. 

“ Garvin, you have never yet told me who staked 
us for this trip,” he said, broaching a subject which 
had more than once asked for speech. 

The miner laughed. “ You never asked. It ’s 
the same old man that staked me when I was yere 
the first time.” 

“ When you dug that hole up yonder in the hill ? ” 

u Urn— hm.” 

“Who is he?” 

Garvin hesitated. “ I had a fool notion I would 
n’t teU you till we ’d struck somethin’ worth while,” 
he said finally. “ If so be we ’ve got to go back 
with our fingers in our mouths, I put it up that 
maybe you ’d feel easier in your mind if you did n’t 
know. You ’re so cussed thin-skinned about some 
things that a feller has to watch out for you contin- 
nyus.” 

Jeffard dug the kindly intention out of the up- 
braiding, and forebore to press the question. After 
all, what did it matter ? Whatever befell, he was 


THE HELPERS 


145 


under no obligations to any one save Garvin. And 
in the itemizing of that debt, an obligation which 
made him restive every time he thought of it, he 
lost sight of the question he had intended asking 
about the peculiarity of the snuff-colored rock in the 
abandoned tunnel. 

A little later, Garvin got up with a mighty yawn, 
and said : “ If we ’re goin’ to get out o’ here afore 
noon to-morrer, I reckon we ’d better be huntin’ us 
a little sleep.” 

“ Turn in if you like ; I ’m not sleepy yet,” said 
J eff ard ; and when Garvin was gone in, he fell to 
pacing up and down before the cabin door with his 
hands behind him and the cold pipe between his 
teeth. 

To what good end had he been preserved by 
Gar^dn’s interference on that night of despair two 
months before ? Had the reprieve opened up any 
practicable way out of the cynical labyrinth into 
which he had wandered? Had his immense obli- 
gation to the prospector quickened any fibre of the 
dead sense of human responsibility, or lighted any 
fire of generous love for his kind ? 

He shook his head. To none of these questions 
could he honestly append an affirmative. In the 
desolate wreck he had made of his life no good 
thing had survived save his love for Constance 
Elliott. That, indeed, was hopeless on the side of 
fruition ; but he clung to it as the one clue of 
promise, hoping, and yet not daring to hope, that it 
might one day lead him out of the wilderness of 


146 


THE HELPERS 


indifference. While he dwelt upon it, pacing back 
and forth in the moonlight, he recalled his picture 
of her standing in the dust-filtered afternoon sun- 
light, with the dim corridor for a background. 

“ God keep you, my darling. I may not look 
upon your face again, but the memory of your 
loving kindness to one soul-sick castaway will live 
while he lives.” 

He said it reverently, turning his face toward the 
far-away city beyond the foot-hills ; and there was 
no subtle sense of divination to tell him that, at an 
unmapped side-track on the farther slope of the 
southernmost sentinel mountain, Bartrow was at that 
moment handing Constance Elliott up the steps of a 
diminutive sleeping-car which was presently to go 
lurching and swaying on its way down the mountain 
in the wake of a pygmy locomotive. Nor could he 
know that, a few hours earlier, the far-seeing gray 
eyes, out of whose depths he had once drawn courage 
and inspiration and the will to do good, had rested 
for a moment on the shut-in valley. 

For the southward sentinel moimtain was known 
to the dwellers on its farther slopes as El Keposo. 


CHAPTER XV 


Robekt Lansdale, literary starveling and doomed 
victim of an incurable malady, was yet sufficiently 
unchastened to read Bartrow’s telegram with the 
nerves of reluctance sharp set. For what he per- 
suaded himself were good and defensible reasons, he 
had lived the life of an urban hermit in Denver, 
arguing that a poverty-smitten crumb-gatherer with 
one foot in the grave might properly refuse to be 
other than an onlooker in any scene of the human 
comedy. 

The prompting was not altogether unselfish. In 
common with other craftsmen of his guild, Lans- 
dale was blessed, or banned, with a moiety of the 
seer’s gift. For him, as for all who can discern the 
masks and trappings and the sham stage-properties, 
the world-comedy had become pitifully tragic ; and 
he was by nature compassionate and sympathetic. 
Wherefore he spared himself the personal point of 
view, cultivating an aloofness which his few friends 
were prone to miscall cynicism and exclusiveness. 

Lansdale knew Miss Elliott by repute, and he 
shrewdly suspected that she knew all Bartrow could 
tell her about a certain literary pretender who had 
once been rude enough to send apologies to a hostess 
who had not invited him. None the less Bartrow 


148 


THE HELPERS 


was too good a friend to be ignored in tbe day of 
his asking ; and Lansdale presented himself at the 
door of the house in Colfax Avenue at an unfashion- 
ably early hour, meaning, to begin by making the 
tender of his services as nearly a matter of business 
as might be. 

It was Connie herself who met him at the door 
and would hear no more than his name until he 
was established in her father’s easy-chair before the 
cheerful fire in the library. Her welcome was hos- 
pitably cordial ; and Lansdale, who had fondly im- 
agined embarrassment to be one of the foibles most 
deeply buried under the debris of the disillusioning 
years, found himself struggling with an attack of 
tongue-tied abashment which is like to be the pen- 
alty exacted of any hermit who refuses to mix and 
mingle with his kind. 

“ I came to see you at the request of a friend of 
yours, and of mine. Miss Elliott,” he began formally, 
fumbling in his pocket for the telegram. “ I have 
a message from Mr. Richard Bartrow which — wiU 
— explain ” — 

The search and the sentence raveled out together 
in the discovery that the telegram which was to have 
been his introduction had been left on the writing- 
table in his room. Connie saw consternation in his 
face and made haste to help him. 

“From Mr. Bartrow? We have just returned 
from a visit to his mine up in Chaffee County. Did 
he forget something that he wanted to tell us, at the 
last moment ? ” 


THE HELPERS 


149 


“ Keally, I — I can’t say,” stammered Lansdale, 
to whom the loss of the telegram was the dragging 
of the last anchor of equanimity. “ It appears that 
I was thoughtless enough to leave the telegram in 
my room. Will you excuse me until I can go back 
and fetch it ? ” 

“ Is it necessary ? ” Connie queried. “ Can’t 
you teU me what he says ? ” 

Lansdale pulled himself together and gave her 
the gist of Bartrow’s mandate. Miss Elliott’s laugh 
made him forget his embarrassment. 

“ That is just like Dick,” she said. “ He offered 
to come down with us last night, but I would n’t let 
him. You know Mr. Bartrow quite well, do you 
not?” 

“ Very weU, indeed.” 

“ Then you know how anxious he always is to 
help his friends.” 

“ No one has better cause to know ; he is one of 
the finest fellows in the world,” Lansdale rejoined 
warmly. 

“Thank you, for Dick’s sake,” said Connie; 
“ now we shall get on nicely. But to go back a 
little : a young woman whom I have been trying to 
help is in some trouble, and Dick thought he might 
be needed. It was out of the goodness of his heart. 
I really don’t need any help — at least, not more 
than my father’s check-book can answer for.” 

“ Are you quite sure ? You must remember that 
I am Kichard Bartrow’s substitute, and make use of 
me accordingly. May I know the circumstances ? ” 


150 


THE HELPERS 


Constance related them, telling him Margaret 
Gannon’s story as only a sister of mercy could tell 
it ; without extenuation or censure, and also without 
embarrassment. Lansdale listened absorbedly, with 
the literary instinct dominant. It was Margaret 
Gannon’s story, but Constance Elliott was the hero- 
ine; a heroine worthy the pen of a master crafts-; 
man, he thought, while the creative part of him was 
busy with the pulling and hauling and scene-shifting 
which the discovery of a Heaven-born central figure 
sets in motion. But in the midst of it the man got 
the better of the craftsman. He foresaw with sud- 
den clarity of insight that Miss EUiott would pre- 
sently be of the inner circle of those out of whom 
the most hardened votary of the pen cannot make 
copy ; those whose personality is sacred because it 
is no longer a thing apart to be dispassionately 
analyzed. 

When she made an end, he sat looking at her so 
intently and so long that she grew nervous. The 
light in his eyes made her feel as if she were focused 
imder the object glass of a microscope. He saw the 
enthusiasm die out of her face and give place to dis- 
composure, and made eager apologies. 

“ Forgive me. Miss EUiott ; I did n’t mean to be 
rude. But I have never looked upon your like be- 
fore, — a woman in whom the quality of mercy is not 
strained ; whose charity is compassionate enough to 
reach out to the unfortunate of her own sex.” 

Connie was too simple-hearted to be self-conscious 
under commendation. 


THE HELPERS 


151 


“That is because your opportunities have been 
unkind, I fancy. A few years ago your criticism 
would have been very just ; but nowadays much of 
the rescue work is done by women, as it should be.” 

“ Much of the organized work, yes. But your own 
story proves that it has not become individualized.” 

“ That may well be the fault of the advocate in 
Margaret’s case,” returned Connie, whose charity was 
not circumscribed. “ If any one of the many good 
women I have tried to enlist in this young woman’s 
cause had been the one to discover her, I should 
doubtless have the same story to tell, and quite pos- 
sibly with a better sequel. But now you understand 
why I don’t need help. Tommie — he ’s my news- 
boy henchman, you know — has been here this 
morning to make his report. It seems that when 
Margaret was taken sick she was in debt to this man 
Grim for costumes, or railway fare, or something, 
and he has taken her sewing-machine to satisfy the 
claim.” 

The hectic flush in Lansdale’s thin cheek began 
to define itself, with a little pulse throbbing in the 
centre of it. 

“ He is an iniquitous scoundrel, and he ought to 
be prosecuted,” he declared. “ Don’t you see ? — but 
of course you don’t ; you are too charitable to sus- 
pect his real object, which is to drive the young 
woman back into the service of his master, the devil. 
He had no more legal right to take her sewing- 
machine than he would have to attach the tools of a 
mechanic. Is there any law in Colorado ? ” 


152 


THE HELPERS 


“ Plenty of it,” Connie rejoined ; adding, with 
unconscious sarcasm, “ but I think it is chiefly 
concerned with disputes about mining claims.” 

“ Let us hope there is a statute or two over and 
above, for the protection of ordinary mortals,” said 
Lansdale, rising and finding his hat. “ I presume 
you meant to buy Margaret another sewing-machine. 
You mustn’t encourage buccaneering in any such 
way. Let me go and try my powers of persuasion 
on Mr. Peter Grim.” 

But Connie was not unmindful of what Bartrow 
had told them about Lansdale’s ill health, and she 
promptly disapproved. 

“ No, indeed, you must n’t, Mr. Lansdale ; you 
mustn’t think of doing any such thing. You don’t 
know the man. He is a ‘ hold-over ’ desperado from 
the stage-line days. Even Dick admits that he is 
a person to be feared and avoided. And, besides, 
you ’re not strong, you know.” 

Lansdale smiled down upon her from his gaunt 
height, and his heart warmed to her in a way which 
was not to be accounted for by the simple rule of 
the humanities. 

“ Dick told you that, too, did he ? I am sorry.” 

« Why?” 

“Because it involves your sympathy, and sympa/- 
thy is much too precious to be wasted upon such 
flotsam as I. But I am quite robust enough to see 
justice done in this young woman’s case. You must 
promise me not to move in it until you hear from 
me.” 


THE HELPERS 


153 


Connie promised and let him go. But in the 
stronger light of the hall she saw how really ill he 
looked, and was remorsefully repentant, after her 
kind. 

Lansdale left the house in Colfax Avenue with an 
unanalyzed sense of levitation, which made him feel 
as though he were walking upon air ; hut when he 
had accounted for the phenomenon he came to earth 
again with disheartening celerity. What had a man 
in whose daily walk death was a visible presence to 
do with the tumult of gladsome suggestion evoked 
by a few words of sympathy from a compassionate 
young woman with a winsome face and innocent 
eyes ? Nothing ; clearly, nothing whatever. Lans- 
dale set his teeth upon the word, and drove the 
suggestion forth with sudden bitterness. His part 
in the little drama growing out of Miss Elliott’s 
deed of mercy was at best but that of a supernumer- 
ary. When he should have made his entrance and 
exit, he must go the way of other supernumeraries, 
and be presently forgotten of the real actors. 

So ran the wise conclusion ; but the event leagued 
itself with unwisdom, and the prudent forecasting 
gave place to the apparent necessities. The pre- 
liminary interview with Grim was wholly abortive. 
The man of vice not only refused point blank to 
make restitution, but evinced a readiness to take the 
matter into the courts which was most disconcerting 
to Margaret Gannon’s moneyless advocate. There- 
upon ensued other visits to the house in Colfax 
Avenue, and a growing and confidential intimacy 


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with Constance, and the enlisting of Stephen Elliott 
in the cause of justice, and many other things not 
prefigured in Lansdale’s itinerary. 

And at the end of it all it was Stephen Elliott’s 
check-book, and not an appeal to the majesty of 
the law, which rescued Margaret Gannon’s sewing- 
machine ; and the man of vice pocketed the amount 
of his extortionate claim, and gave a receipt in full 
therefor, biding his time, and bidding an obsequious 
Son of Ahriman — the same whom JefPard had 
smitten aforetime — keep an eye on Margaret Gan- 
non against the day when she should be sufficiently 
unbefriended to warrant a recasting of the net. 

And when these things had come to pass, Robert 
Lansdale was of all men the most miserable. From 
much dabbling in the trickling rill of fictional sen- 
timent, he had come to disbelieve the existence of 
any deep river of passion ; but now he found him- 
self upon the brink of such a river and was forbid- 
den to plunge therein. Nay, more ; he must turn 
away from it, parched and thirsty as any wayworn 
pilgrim of the world-desert, without so much as lift- 
ing a palmfid of its healing waters to his lips. 

He postponed the turning away from day to day, 
weakly promising himself that each visit to the house 
in Colfax Avenue should be the last, and as weakly 
yielding when a day or two of abstinence had en- 
hanced his soul-hunger until it became a restless 
agony, mocking his most strenuous effort to drown 
it in a sea of work. 

Failing himself utterly, he fell to watching Con- 


THE HELPERS 


155 


nie’s face for some token of the hopelessness of his 
passion, telling himself that he should find strength 
to stay away when he should read his sentence in 
the calm gray eyes. But Connie’s eyes were as yet 
no more than frankly sympathetic. And because 
he was far from home, and seemingly friendless, 
and fighting the last grim battle with an incurable 
malady, she made him welcome and yet more wel- 
come, until finally, the optimistic insanity of the 
consumptive came upon him, assuring him that he 
should live and not die, and pointing him hopefully 
down a dim vista of years, — a shining way wherein 
they two might walk hand in hand till they should 
come to the gate of the House Beautiful whose chat- 
elaine is Fame. 


CHAPTER XVI 


The line of retreat from the valley, called by 
Jeffard “ of dry bones,” to the possible land of pro- 
mise in the Mosquito, lay through Leadville; not 
the teeming, ebuUient, pandemoniac mining-camp of 
the early carbonate era, but its less crowded, less 
effervescent, though no less strenuous successor of 
the present. 

On the march across the sky-pitched mountains 
it had been agreed between them that there should 
be one bivouac in the city of the bleak altitudes. 
That is to say, Garvin proposed it, and Jeffard as- 
sented, though not without a premonition that the 
halt would be fatal to the proposed Mosquito sequel 
to the campaign in the Saguache. He knew at least 
one of Garvin’s weaknesses, and that it was akin 
to his own. There were the beast of burden and 
the dispensable moiety of the camping outfit to sell, 
and provision to buy ; and Jeffard weighed his com- 
panion in the balances of his own shortcomings. He 
was well assured that he could not trust himself 
with money in his hand in any such city of chance- 
ful opportunity as the great carbonate camp; and 
arraigning Garvin at the bar of the same tribunal, 
he judged him before the fact. 


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157 


It was a measure of the apathetic indifference 
which possessed Jeffard that the premonition gave 
him scant concern. He marveled inwardly when 
the fact of indifference defined itself. Aside from 
any promptings of common human gratitude evolv- 
ing themselves into friendly sohcitude for the man 
who had twice saved his life, — promptings which 
he found dead because he looked to fi^nd them dead, 
— there was this : If his companion should stumble 
and spill the scanty residue in the common purse 
the wolf-pack of famine and distress would be at 
their heels in a single sweep of the clock-hands. And 
yet the fact remained. 

Jeffard was cogitating vaguely this curious mani- 
festation of mental and moral inertia when the city 
of the altitudes came into view over the crest of the 
final ascent in the toilsome journey. , The smoke 
from the smelters was trailing lazily toward the dis- 
tant Mosquito, and a shifting ciumdus of steam 
marked the snail-like advance of a railway train up 
the steep grade from Malta. California Gulch and 
the older town were hidden behind the mountain of 
approach ; but the upper town and its western envi- 
rons lay stark in the hazeless atmosphere, with the 
snow-splotched background of the nearer range, up- 
tilted and immense, dwarfing the houses into hutch- 
like insignificance. Dreary as is this first view of 
the Mecca of wealth-seekers, it has quickened the 
pulse and brightened the eye of many a wayworn pil- 
grim of the mountain desert ; but J effard’s thought 
was in his question to Garvin. 


158 


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“ Is it as near as it looks ? or is it as far away as 
this cursed no-atmosphere removes everything? ” 

“ It ’s a good ten mile ’r so, yet. If we get a 
move on, we ’ll make it by sundown, maybe.” 

They tramped on in silence, the singing silence of 
the crystalline heights, measuring mile after mile at 
the heels of the patient burro, and reaching the 
scattering outposts of the western suburb while yet 
the sun hung hesitant above the peaks of the main 
range. The nearer aspect of the great mining-camp 
was inexpressibly depressive to Jeffard. The weath- 
ered buildings, frankly utilitarian and correspond- 
ingly unbeautiful ; the harsh sterility of the rocky 
soil ; the ruthless subordination of aU things to the 
sordid purposes of money-getting ; these were the 
stage-settings of a scene which moved him curiously, 
like the fumes of a mingled cup, intoxicating, but 
soul-nauseating, withal. The nausea was a conse- 
quent of the changed point of view, and he knew it ; 
but it was no whit less grievous. Wherefore he 
groped in the pool of indifference imtil he found a 
small stone of protest. 

“Let us do what we have to do and get away 
from here quickly, Garvin,” he said, flinging the 
stone with what precision there was in him. 

They had turned into the principal street, and the 
burro became reluctant. Garvin smote the beast 
from behind, and took a turn of the halter around 
its jaw. 

‘ Goin’ to gig back for the crowd, ain’t you ? ” he 
growled, apostrophizing the jack ] and then to Jef- 


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159 


fard : “ Makes you sort o’ town-sick, T reckon. I 
know the feel of it ; used to catch it, reg’lar, ever’ 
time I ’d get in from the range. It ’ll wear off 
after a day ’r so ; but, as you say, the quick way to 
do it up is to light out ag’in, suddint.” 

“The sooner the better,” said Jeffard. “The 
atmosphere of the place is maddening.” 

Garvin took the word hterally and laughed. 
“ ’T ain’t got no atmosphere to speak of, — that ’s 
what ’s the matter with it ; too blame’ high up for 
any use.” 

They were in the thick of the street traffic by this 
time, and it required their united malisons joined to 
what of energy and determination the long day’s 
march had left them to keep the ass from planting 
itself monument-wise in the middle of the street. 

“ Dad burn a canary, anyhow ! ” grumbled the 
man of the wilderness, when they were resting a 
moment in front of a shackly building on the corner 
of a cross street. “ For ornerary, simon-pure, b’iled- 
down, soul-killin’ ” — His vocabulary of objurga- 
tory expletives ran short, and he wrought out the 
remainder of the malediction with a dumb show of 
violence. 

Jeffard smiled in spite of his mood, which was 
anything but farcical, and pointed to the haversack 
of specimens dangling from the loosened pack. 

“We ’re about to lose the samples,” he said. 

Garvin regained his wonted good-humor at a 
plunge. 

“That’d be too blame’ bad, wouldn’t it, now; 


160 


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they ’re so blazin’ precious ! S’pose you lug ’em 
acrost yonder to that there assay-shop whilst I toll 
the canary down to the corral. When you get shut 
o’ the rocks, come on round to the boardin ’-house, — 

‘ Miner’s Kest,’ — a block furder along and two to 
your right. I ’ll meet you there bime-by, if there ’s 
anything left o’ me after I get through with this 
dad-burned, lop-eared totin’-machine.” 

Jeffard shouldered the bag of samples, but before 
he could reply the opportunity fled clamorous. The 
lop-eared one, finding itself free for the moment, 
gave heed to a foolish bee buzzing in its atomic 
brain, and went racing down the cross street, with 
the big miner in hot pursuit. 

“Exit James Garvin,” quoth Jeffard, moved to 
smile again; and he crossed the avenue to the 
shackly building with the sign of the assayer be- 
sprent upon the windows. 

When he tried the door and found it locked, and 
the littered room beyond it empty, he was minded to 
go on to the rendezvous while daylight served. But 
when he reflected that Garvin would be sure to 
await an assayer’s verdict on the samples, and so 
prolong their stay in the city of banality, he decided 
to conclude the business affair first. So he went up 
and down and around and about, and found all the 
assay offices closed for the day save one, whose occu- 
pant, a round-bodied little German, with the face of 
a cherub, martialized by the huge mustachios of a 
cuirassier, was still at his bench. Jeffard guessed 
at the little man’s nationality, and made a shrewd 
bid for celerity. 


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161 


“ Guten ahend^ mein Herr^’’ he said, unslinging 
his haversack. 

The cherubic face of the expatriated one responded 
quickly to the greeting in the loved mother-tongue. 

“ Wie gehts^ wie gehts^ mein guter Herr^^ he re- 
joined ; and then in broken English : “I haf not 
dot Gherman before heard spoken in dis Gott-for- 
saken blaces. You haf some sambles gehracJit f ” 

“ e/a, mein HerrT 

“ Gutl I vill of dem de tests maig. Nieht 
wahr f ” 

“ Gefalligst^ mein lieber Herr\ and quickly, — 
we must go on our way again to-morrow.” 

“Soqvick? Aeh! das ist nieht sehr gut You 
vill der poor olt assay-meister maig to vork on der 
nide. But because you haf der goot Gherman in 
your moud I vill it do. Vat you haf ? ” 

Jeffard unwrapped the samples one by one, and 
the assayer examined them with many dubious head- 
shakings. The amateur made haste to anticipate 
the prehminary verdict. 

“ I know they ’re valueless,” he admitted, “ but 
I have a partner who will require your certificate 
before he will be convinced. Gan you let us know 
to-morrow ? ” 

“ Because you haf der Gherman, yes. But it vill 
be no goot; der silwer iss not dere” — including 
the various specimens in a comprehensive gesture. 

J eff ard turned to go, slinging the lightened haver- 
sack over his shoulder. At the door he bethought 
him of the curious fragment of quartz picked up on 


162 


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the dump of the abandoned tunnel. It was in his 
pocket, and he rummaged till he found it. 

“ Can you tell me anything about this ? ” he 
asked. “It seems to be a decomposed quartzite, 
matted on a base of some sort, — a metal, I should 
say.” 

The little German snatched the bit of quartz, and 
ogled it eagerly through his eye-glass. 

“ Mein Gott im Himmell^^ he cried; and the eye- 
glass fell to the floor and rolled under the bench. 
“ Iss it possible dot you know him not ? Dot iss 
golt, mein lieher freund, — vire golt, reech, reech ! 
Vere you got him? Haf you got some more von 
dis?” 

Jeffard took it in vaguely, and tried to remember 
what he had done with the handful of similar frag- 
ments gathered at the same time. It came to him 
presently. He had emptied his pocket into the 
haversack on the morning of the departure from the 
valley what time Garvin was seeking the strayed 
burro. 

He unslung the canvas bag and poured the hand- 
ful of gravel on the bench. The assayer, trembling 
now with repressed excitement, examined the snuff- 
colored quartz, bit by bit, with a guttural ejaculation 
for each. “ Donnerwetter / He gifs me feerst der 
vorthless stones to maig of dem de assay, und den 
he vill ask me von leedle qvestion about dis — dis 
maknificend bonansa! Achf mein freund! haf 
you got viel of dis precious qvartz ? ” 

“ Why, yes ; there ’s a good bit of it, I believe,” 


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163 


replied Jeffard, still unawake to the magnitude of 
the discovery. 

“Und you can find der blaces again? Dink 
aboud it now — dink hardt ! ” 

J effard smiled. “ Don’t get excited, mein Herr, 
I know the place very well, indeed ; I left it only 
three days since.” 

“ Gut ; sehr gut ! Now go you ; go und leef me 
to mein vork. Come you back in der morgen,^ und 
I vill teU you dot you are reech, reech ! Go, mein 
freund^ mit der goot Gherman in your moud — und 
Gott go mit you.” 

Jeffard felt his way down the dark stair, and so 
on out into the lighted street, still only in the mid- 
dle ground between realization and the bare know- 
ledge of the fact. He was conscious of some vague 
recurrent effort to surround the incredible thing; 
and conscious, too, that it grew and spread with 
each succeeding attempt to measure it until no mere 
human arms could girdle it. 

Not yet did it occur to him to place himself at the 
nodus of discovery and possession. The miraculous 
thing was for him quite a thing apart ; and when 
he had advanced far enough into the open country 
of realization to look a little about him, his thought 
was wholly for Garvin and the effect upon him of 
this sudden projection into the infinite. He tried 
to imagine the simple-hearted prospector as a man 
of affluence, and laughed aloud at the grotesque 
figure conjured up by the thought. What would 
Garvin do with his money? Squander it royally, 


164 


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like a loyal son of fortune, and think the world well 
lost, Jeifard decided. 

The hissing gasoline torch of a street fakir flared 
gustily in the keen night wind sweeping down from 
the Mosquito, and the scintillant arc-stars at the 
corners began to take on frosty aureoles of prismatic 
hues. The crowds on the resonant plank sidewalks 
streamed boisterous and masterful, as if the plangent 
spirit of time and place were abroad. Jeffard came 
to earth again in the rude jostling of the throng. 
While he speculated, Garvin — Garvin the inex- 
pectant — was doubtless awaiting him at the place 
appointed. He must hasten thither to be the bearer 
of the good news to the unspoiled one. 

Looking about him to get his bearings, he found 
himself in front of the deserted assay office on the 
spot where he had parted from Garvin. “ One 
square down and two to the right,” he said, repeat- 
ing Garvin’s directions ; and he set out to trudge 
them doggedly, lagging a little from honest leg- 
weariness. In the last half of the third square 
there was a screened doorway, and the click of cel- 
luloid counters came to his ears from the brilliantly 
hghted room beyond. At the sound the embers of 
the fire kindled months before glowed afresh and 
made his heart hot. 

“ Ah, you ’re there yet, are you ? ” he said, speak- 
ing to the stirring passion as if it were a sentient 
entity within him. “ Well, you’ll have to lie down 
again ; there ’s no meat on the bone.” 

At the designated corner he found the rendezvous. 


165 


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It was a hostelry of the baser sort, with a bar-room 
dominant, and eating and sleeping conveniences 
— or inconveniences — subsidiary. The clatter of 
knives and forks on ironstone china came from the 
ill-smelling dining-room in the rear, and the bar- 
room held but one occupant. It was Garvin; he 
was sitting at one of the card-tables with his head in 
his arms. He looked up when Jelfard entered, and 
his smile was of fatigue. 

“ Hello, there ; thought you ’d gone and got lost 
in the shuffle. Get shut of ’em ? ” 

Jeffard nodded. 

“ No good, I reckon ? ” 

“ No ; nothing that we ’ve found this summer. 
But you ’re a rich man, just the same, Garvin.” 

“ Yes ; I ’ve cashed in on the outfit, and I ’ve got 
twenty dollars in my inside pocket. Let ’s go in and 
chew before them fellers eat it all up.” 

“ Don’t be in a hurry ; the kind of supper we ’U 
get here can wait. I said you are a rich man, and 
I meant it. You remember the old hole up in the 
hillside above the camp, — the one you struck a 
‘ dike ’ in two years ago ? ” 

“ Keckon I ain’t likely to forget it.” 

“ W ell, that ‘ dike ’ was decomposed quartz carry- 
ing free gold. I was curious enough to put a hand- 
ful of the stuff into my pocket and bring it out. 
The assayer ’s at work on it now, and he says it ’ll 
run high — up into the hundreds, I imagine. Is 
there much of it ? ” 

The effect of the announcement on the unspoiled 


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one was like that of an electric shock. He staggered 
to his feet, went white under the bronze, and flung 
his arms about Jeffard. 

“ Hooray ! ” he shouted ; “ that old hole — that 
same derned old hole ’at I Ve cussed out more ’n a 
million times ! Damn my fool soul, but I knew you 
was a Mascot — knew it right from the jump ! Come 
on — let ’s irrigate it right now, ’fore it ’s a minute 
older ! ” 

It was out of the depth of pure good-feUowship 
that Jeffard went to the bar with the fortune-daft 
miner. Not all the vicissitudes of the breathless 
rush down the inclined plane had been sufficient to 
slay the epicure in him ; and the untidy bar reeked 
malodorous. But the occasion was its own excuse. 

Garvin beat upon the bar with his fist, and the 
roar of his summons drowned the clatter of knives 
and forks in the adjacent dining-room. The bar- 
tender came out, wiping his lips on the back of his 
hand. 

“ What ’ll it be, gents ? ” 

“The best you’ve got ain’t good enough,” said 
Garvin, with unwitting sarcasm. “Trot her out — 
three of a kind. It ’s on me, and the house is 
in it.” 

The man spun two glasses across the bar, and set 
out a black bottle of dubious aspect. Knowing his 
own stock in trade, he drew himseK a glass of Apol- 
linaris water. 

Jeffard sniffed at the black bottle and christened 
his glass sparingly. The bouquet of the liquor was 


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167 


an entire round of dissipation with the subsequent 
headache thrown in. Garvin tilted the bottle with 
trembling hand, and filled his glass to the brim. 
The object-lesson was’ not thrown away upon the 
epicure. 

“ Here ’s to the derned old hole with a cold mil- 
lion in it,” said the miner, naming the toast and 
draining his glass in the same breath. And then : 
“ Come again, barkeep’ ; drink water yourself, if 
you want to, but the red likker ’s good enough for 
us. What do ye say, pardner? We ’re in it at last, 
plum up to the neck, and all on account o’ that 
derned old hole ’ at I ’ve cussed out a mil — Here ’s 
lookin’ at ye.” 

Jeffard merely moistened his lips the second 
time, and the object-lesson exemplified itself. Gar- 
vin had brimmed his glass again, and the contents 
of the black bottle were adulterant poisons. Where- 
fore he cut in quickly when Garvin would have 
ordered again. 

“ That ’ll do, old man ; a little at a time and often, 
if you must, but not on an empty stomach. Let ’s 
get the money before we spend it.” 

The latter part of the warning had special signi- 
ficance for the bartender, who scowled ominously. 

“ Lemme see the color o’ yer money,” he com- 
manded. “ If youse fellies are runnin’ futures on 
me — 

Now Garvin had been living the life of an ancho- 
ret for many weeks, and the fumes of the fiery liquor 
were already mounting to his brain. For which 


168 THE HELPERS 

cause the bartender’s insinuation was as spark to 
tow. 

“ Futures ? ” he yelled, throwing down a ten-dollar 
bill with a mighty buffet on the bar ; “ them ’s the 
kind o’ futures we ’re drinkin’ on right now ! Why, 
you thick-lipped, mealy-mouthed white nigger, you, 
I ’ll come down here some day and buy the floor out 
from in under your feet ; see ? Come on, pardner ; 
let ’s mog along out o’ here ’fore I ’m tempted to 
mop up his greasy floor with this here ” — 

There was hot wrath in the bartender’s eyes, and 
Jeffard hustled the abusive one out of the place 
lest a worse thing should foUow. On the sidewalk 
he remembered what Garvin had already forgot- 
ten, and went back for the change out of the ten- 
dollar bill, dropping it into his pocket and rejoining 
his companion before the latter had missed him. 
Thereupon ensued a war of words. The newly 
belted knight of fortune was for making a night of 
it ; and when Jeffard would by no means consent to 
this, Garvin insisted upon going to the best hotel in 
the city, where they might live at large as prospec- 
tive millionaires should. 

Jeffard accepted the alternative, and constituted 
himself bearward in ordinary to the half-crazed son 
of the wilderness. He saw difficulties ahead, and 
the event proved that he did not overestimate them. 
What a half-intoxicated man, bent upon becoming 
wholly intoxicated, may do to make thorny the path 
of a self-constituted guardian Garvin did that night. 
At the hotel he scandalized the not too curious clerk. 


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169 


and became the centre of an appreciative group in 
the rotunda what time Jeffard was pleading the 
mitigating circumstances with the hesitant deputy 
proprietor. In the midst of the plea, when Jeffard 
had consented to assume all responsibihty for his 
companion’s vagaries, Garvin broke cover in the 
direction of the bar-room, followed by a tail of 
thirsty ones. 

“ You say you know him ? ” said the clerk tenta- 
tively. 

“Know him? Why, yes; he is my partner. 
We are just in from the range, and he has struck it 
rich. It ’s a little too much for him just now, but 
he ’ll quiet down after a bit. He is one of the best 
fellows alive, when he ’s sober ; and this is the first 
time I ’ve ever seen him in liquor. Two drinks of 
bad whiskey did it.” 

“ Two drinks and a surfeit of good luck,” laughed 
the clerk. “ Well, we ’ll take him ; but you must 
keep him out of the way. He ’ll be crazy drunk in 
less than an hour. Been to supper ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Better have it sent to your room. He is n’t fit 
to go to the dining-room.” 

“ All right ; have a bell-boy ready, and I ’ll knock 
him down and drag him out, if I can. 

That was easier said than done. Jeffard found 
the foolish one in the bar-room, drinking ad libitum, 
and holding forth to a circle of interested hearers. 
Garvin had evidently been recounting the history of 
the abandoned claim, and one of the listeners, a 


170 


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hawk-faced man, with shifty black eyes, was endeav- 
oring to draw him aside. He succeeded just as 
Jeffard thrust his way into the circle, and the seK- 
elected bearwarden caught the whispered question 
and its answer. 

“You say you located her two years ago?’’ 
queried the hawk-faced one. 

“ No ; that ’s the joke o’ the whole shootin’- 
match, — thess like I was a-tellin’ ye.” Garvin’s 
speech ran back to its native Tennessee idiom at 
the bidding of intoxication. “ She ain’t nev’ been 
located yit ; and if it had n’t ’a’ been for that derned 
little sharp-eyed pardner o’ mine ” — 

The questioner turned quickly to the bar. 

“ Drinks all round, gentlemen — on me.” Then 
to Garvin in the cautious undertone : “You said 
she was over in Stray Horse Valley, did n’t you ? ” 

Garvin fell into the trap headlong. “Not much 
I did n’t ! She ’s a-snugglin’ down under one o’ the 
bigges’ peaks in the Saguache, right whar she can 
listen to the purlin’ o’ the big creek that heads 
in ” — 

There was no time for diplomatic interference. 
Jeffard locked his arm about Garvin’s head, and 
dragged the big man bodily out of the circle. 

“ You fool ! ” he hissed. “ Will you pitch it into 
the hands of the first man that asks for it ? Come 
along out of this ! ” 

Garvin stood dazed, and a murmur of disapproval 
ran through the group of thirsters. The hand of 
the hawk-faced one stole by imperceptible degrees 


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171 


toward his hip pocket. JefPard stopped it with a 
look. 

“ You have had fun enough with my partner for 
one evening, gentlemen,” he said sternly. “ Come 
on, Jim ; let ’s go to supper.” 

And the thirsters saw them no more. 


CHAPTEE XVII 


It was midnight and worse before the lately belted 
knight of fortune had outworn the hilarious and 
entered upon the somnolent stage of the little jour- 
ney insensate, and when the thing could be done, 
Jeffard put him to bed with a paean of thanksgiving 
which was none the less heartfelt for being im- 
vocalized. 

Having thus set his hand to Garvin’s plough, there 
was no alternative but to turn the furrow to the end ; 
wherefore, to guard against surprises, he hid the 
boots of the bottle-mad one, barricaded the door with 
his own bed, and lay down to doze with eyelids ajar. 
At least that was the alert determination; but the 
event proved that he was weary enough to sleep 
soundly and late, and it was seven o’clock, and the 
breakfast caUer was hammering on the door, when 
he opened his eyes on the new day. Naturally, his 
first thought was for his companion, and the sight 
of the empty bed in the farther corner of the room 
brought him broad awake and afoot at the same 
saltatory moment. The son of fortune was gone, 
and an open door into the adjoining room accounted 
for the manner of his going. 

Five minutes later, picture an anxious brother- 
keeper making pointed inquiries of the day-clerk 


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173 


below stairs. Instant question and answer fly back 
and forth shuttle-wise, one may suppose, weaving 
suspicion into a firm fabric of fact. Two men 
whose names, or whose latest aliases, were How- 
ard and Lantermann, had occupied the room next 
to J effard’s, — quite chancefully, the clerk thinks. 
They had left at an early hour ; their call was for — 
one moment, and he (the clerk) will ascertain the 
exact time. 

Whereupon one may fancy an exasperated bear- 
warden cursing exactnesses and beating with im- 
patient fist upon the counter for the major fact. 
The fact, extorted at length, is simple and conclu- 
sive. The two men had come down some time 
between five and six o’clock, with a third as a middle 
link in a chain of locked arms. One of the two had 
paid the bill, and they had all departed ; by way of 
the bar-room and the side entrance, as the clerk 
remembers. 

Whereat Jeffard is moved to swear strange oaths ; 
is swearing them, in point of fact, when the omnibus 
from an early train shunts its cargo of arrivals into 
the main entrance. Among the incomers is a big 
fellow with a drooping mustache and square-set 
shoulders, who forthwith drops his handbag and 
pounces upon Jeffard with greetings boisterous. 

“ Well, I ’ll be shot ! — or words to that effect ” 
(hand-wringings and shoulder-clappings). “ Now 
where on top of God’s green earth did you tumble 
from ? Begin away back yonder and give an ac- 
count of yourself ; or, hold on, — let me write my 


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name in the book and then you can tell me while we 
eat. By Jove, old man! I’m foolishly glad to see 
you ! ” 

Jeffard cut in quickly between the large-hearted 
protest and the signing of the register. 

“ Just a second, Bartrow ; let the breakfast wait, 
and listen to me. I ’m in no end of a tangle, and 
you ’re the man of all others to help me out if any 
one can. Do you happen to know a feUow named 
Garvin ? ” 

“ Don’t I ? ‘ Tennessee Jim, P. P.,’ — that stands 
for perennial prospector, you know. Sure. He ’s 
of the salt of the earth ; rock salt, but fuU flavored. 
I know him like a book, though I had n’t seen him 
for a dog’s-age until — but go on.” 

Jeffard did go on, making the occasion one of the 
few which seemed to justify the setting aside of 
indirection. 

“We were partners ; we have been out together 
all summer. He has struck it rich, and has gone 
clean daft in the lilt of it. I can’t get him sober 
long enough to do what may be necessary to secure 
the claim. The sharks are after him hot foot, and 
if they can succeed in soaking the data out of him, 
they will jump the claim before he can get it located 
and recorded.” 

Bartrow laughed. “ That ’s just like Jim : ordi- 
narily, he does n’t drink as much whiskey in a year 
as most men do in a week. But if that ’s your only 
grief you can come to breakfast with me and take 
your time about it. Later on, when we ’ve smoked 


THE HELPERS 


175 


a few lines and brought up the arrears of gossip, 
we ’ll hold a council of war and see what you ’re to 
do about the potential bonanza.” 

“ But I can’t do anything ; it ’s Garvin’s, I tell 
you.” 

“ Well, you are partners in it, are n’t you ? ” 

Jeffard had another fight with an ingrained reserve 
which was always blocking the way to directness 
and prompting him to leave the major fact unstated. 

“We are not partners in this particular claim. 
It ’s an old discovery of Garvin’s. He drove the 
tunnel on it two years ago and then abandoned it. 
He was looking for tellurides and opened a vein 
of free-gold quartz without knowing what he had 
found.” 

“ Then it ’s nobody’s claim, as it stands ; or 
rather I should say it ’s anybody’s. You — or 
rather Garvin — will have to begin at the begin- 
ning, just as if it were a new deal; go back and 
post a notice on the ground and then come out and 
record it. And if it ’s Garvin’s claim, as you say, 
he ’s got to do this in person. Nobody can do it for 
him. You can’t turn a wheel till you get hold of 
Jim, and that ’s what makes me say what I ‘ does.’ 
Let ’s go in and eat.” 

“ But, Dick ; you don’t understand ” — 

“ Yes, I do ; and I happen to know a thing or 
two about this deal that you don’t. You ’ve got the 
whole forenoon before you; you are as safe as a 
house up to twelve o’clock. Come on.” 

“I say you don’t understand. You called it a 


176 


THE HELPERS 


‘ potential bonanza ’ just now, meaning that it 
wouldn’t make so very much difference if it were 
never recorded. But it ’s a bonanza in fact. If 
Rittenberger knows what he is talking about, it is 
the biggest strike of the year, by long odds. I don’t 
know much about such things, but it seems to me it 
ought to be secured at once and at all hazards.” 

“ Rittenberger, you say ? — the little Dutchman ? 
You can bank on what he teUs you, every time. I 
didn’t know you’d been to an assayer. What is 
the figure? ” 

“ I don’t know that. I left the sample with him 
last night, and was to call this morning for the certi- 
ficate. But the little man bubbled over at the mere 
sight of it.” 

“ Good for old Jim ! So much the better. Never- 
theless, as I say, you ’ve an easy haK-hour in which 
to square yourself with me over the ham and eggs 
and what-not, and plenty of time to do what there is 
to be done afterward. You can’t do anything but 
wait.” 

“ Yes, I can ; I can find Garvin and make sure of 
him. Don’t you see ” — 

“ I see that I ’ll have to tell you all I know — and 
that’s something you never do for anybody — be- 
fore you’ll be reasonable. Listen, then: I saw your 
chump of a partner less than an hour ago. He was 
with two of his old cronies, and all three of them 
were pretty well in the push, for this early in the 
morning. They boarded the train I came up on, 
and that is why I say you ’re safe till noon. There 


THE HELPERS 


177 


is no train from the west till twelve-seven. I know 
Jim pretty well, and at his foolishest he never quite 
loses his grip. He had it in mind that he ought to 
fight shy of something or somebody, and he ’s given 
you the slip, dodged the enemy, and gone off on a 
three-handed spree all in a bunch. There now, does 
that clear up the mystery ? ” 

Jeffard had caught at the counter-rail and was 
gradually petrifying. Here was the worst that could 
have befallen, and Bartrow had suspected nothing 
more than a drunken man’s frolic. 

“ Gone ? — with two men, you say ? Can you 
describe them ? ” 

“ Roughly, yes ; they were Jim ’s kind — miners 
or prospectors. One of them was tall and thin and 
black, and the other was rather thick-set and red. 
The red one was the drunkest of the three.” 

“ Dressed like miners? ” Jeffard had to fight for 
the “ s’s.” His tongue was thick and his lips dry. 

“ Sure.” 

“ That settles it, Dick, definitely. Last night 
those two fellows were dressed like men about town 
and wore diamonds. They ’ve soaked their informa- 
tion out of Garvin, and they are on their way to 
locate that claim.” 

It was Bartrow’s turn to gasp and stammer. 
“ What ? — locate the — Caesar’s ghost, man, you ’re 
daft ! They would n’t take Garvin with them I ” 

“ They would do just that. In the first place, 
with the most accurate description of the locality 
that Garvin, drunk, could give them, there would be 


178 


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the uncertainty of finding it without a guide. They 
know that they have left a sane man behind them 
who can find the way back to the claim ; and their 
only chance was to take Garvin along, keeping him 
drunk enough to be unsuspicious, and not too drunk 
to pilot them. Once on the ground ahead of me, 
and with Garvin in their power, they can do the 
worst.” 

Bartrow came alive to the probabilities in the 
catching of a breath. “ Which will be to kill Gar- 
vin safely out of the way, post the claim, and snap 
their fingers at the world. Good Lord ! — and I 
let ’em knock him down and drag him out under my 
very eyes ! I ’d ought to be shot.” 

“ It ’s not your fault, Dick ; it ’s mine. I saw 
what was in the wind last night, and stuck to Garvin 
till I got him to bed. I was dog-tired, — we ’d been 
tramping all day, — and I thought he was safe to 
sleep the clock around. I hid his boots, dragged 
my bed across the door, and went to sleep.” 

“ You could n’t have done less — or more. What 
happened ? ” 

“ This. Those two fellows had the room next to 
us, and there was a door between. They slipped him 
out this morning before I was awake.” 

“Of course; all cut out and shaped up before- 
hand. But, thank the Lord, there ’s a ghost of a 
chance yet. Where is the claim ? ’’ 

“ It is three days’ march a little to the south of 
west, on the headwaters of a stream which flows into 
the Gunnison Kiver.” 


THE HELPERS 


179 


“ And the nearest railroad point ? ” 

“ Is Aspen. If I remember correctly, Garvin said 
it was about twenty miles across the range.” 

“ Good. That accounts for the beginning of the 
race ; they ’ll go to Aspen and take horses from 
there. But I don’t understand why they took the 
long line. There are two railroads to Aspen, and 
one of them is an hour and twenty minutes longer 
than the other. That ’s your chance, and the only 
one, — to beat ’em to the end of the railroad run. 
How are you fixed ? ” 

“ For money, you mean? I have the wreck of a 
ten-dollar note and a hotel bill to pay.” 

Bartrow spun around on his heel and shot a sud- 
den question at the hotel clerk, the answer to which 
was inaudible to Jefiard. But Bartrow’s rejoinder 
was explanatory. 

“ Rooms over the bank, you say ? That ’s lucky.” 
This to the clerk; and then to Jeffard : “Come 
along with me ; this is no tune to stick at trifies. 
You ’ve got to have money, suddenly, and plenty of it.” 

But Jeffard hung back. 

“ What are you going to do, Dick ? ” 

“ Stake you and let you try for a special engine 
over the short line. Those fellows took the long 
way around, as I say, — why, I don’t know, because 
both trains leave at the same time. The running 
time the way they have gone is five hours and forty- 
five minutes. By the other line it ’s only four hours 
and twenty-five minutes. Savez? ” 

“ Yes, but ” — 


180 


THE HELPERS 


“ Weed out the ‘ huts ’ and come along. We ’re 
due to rout a man out of bed and make him open a 
bank vault. I can’t put my hand into my pocket 
for you, as I ’d like to ; but I know a banker, and 
my credit ’s good.” 

They found the cashier of the Carbonate City 
National in the midst of his toilet. He was an 
Eastern man of conservative habit, but he was suf- 
ficiently Occidentalized to grasp the main points in 
Bartrow’s terse narrative, and to rise to the inexor- 
able demands of the occasion. 

“ You know the rule, Mr. Bartrow, — two good 
names ; and I don’t know your friend. But this 
seems to be an eighteen-carat emergency. Take 
that key and go down the back way into the bank. 
You ’ll find blank notes on the public desk. Make 
out your paper for what Mr. Jeffard wiU need, and 
I ’ll be with you in half a minute.” 

They found the way and the blank, which latter 
Bartrow hastily fiUed out, indorsed, and handed to 
Jeffard for signature. It was for five hundred dol- 
lars, and the proletary’s hand shook when he dipped 
the pen. 

“ It ’s too much,” he protested ; “ I can’t stand 
it, Dick. It is like putting a whetted sword into 
the hands of a madman.” 

That was his first reference to the past and its 
smirched record, and Bartrow promptly toppled it 
into the abyss of generalities. 

“ Same old hair-splitter, are n ’t you ? What ’s 
the matter with you now ? ” 


THE HELPERS 


181 


“ You know — better than any one. I am not to 
be trusted with any such sum of money.” 

“ Call it Garvin’s, then. I don’t know how you 
feel toward Jim, but I ’ve always found him a man 
to tie to.” 

A woman would have said that Jeffard turned 
aside to hide an upflash of emotion, though a clot on 
the pen was the excuse. But it was the better part 
of him that made answer. 

“ I owe him my life — twice, Dick. By all the 
known hypotheses of honor and gratitude and com- 
mon decency I ought to be true to him now, in this 
his day of helplessness. But when one has eaten and 
drunk and slept with infamy ” — 

The cashier’s step was on the stair, and Bartrow 
cut in swiftly. 

“ Jeffard, you make me weary! — and, inciden- 
tally, you’re killing precious time. Can’t you see 
that trust is n’t a matter of much or little ? If you 
can’t, why just name the amount for which you ’d 
be tempted to drop Garvin, and we ’ll cut under it 
so as to be on the safe side.” 

“ But I sha’n’t need a fifth of this,” Jeffard 
objected, wavering. 

“ You are liable to need more. You must re- 
member that ten minutes hence you ’ll be trying to 
subsidize a raiboad company. Sign that note and 
quit quibbling about it.” 

The thing was done, but when the money had 
changed hands, Jeffard quibbled again. 

“ If the worst comes, you can’t afford to pay that 


182 


THE HELPERS 


note, Bartrow ; and my probability hangs on a hun- 
dred hazards. What if I fail ? ” 

The cashier had unlocked the street door for 
them, and Bartrow ran the splitter of hairs out to 
the sidewalk. 

“ You ’re not going to fail if I can ever succeed 
in getting you in motion. Good Lord, man ! can’t 
you wake up and get a grip of the situation ? It 
is n’t the mere saving or losing of the bonanza ; it ’s 
sheer life or death to Jim Garvin — and you say 
you owe him. Here, — this cab is as good as any. 
Midland office, my man ; haK time, double fare. 
Don’t spare the leather.” 

At eight-ten to the minute they were negotiating 
with the superintendent’s chief clerk for a special 
engine to Aspen. Whereupon, as is foreordained 
in such crises, difficulties multiplied themselves, 
while the office clock’s decorous pendulum ticked off 
the precious margin of time. Bartrow fought this 
battle, fought it single-handed and won ; but that 
was because his weapon was invincible. The prelim- 
inary passage at arms vocalized itself thus : — 

The Clerk^ mindful of his superior’s moods, and 
reflectively dubitant : “ I ’m afraid I have n’t the 
authority. You will have to wait and see the super- 
intendent. He ’ll be down at nine.” 

Bartrow : “ Make it a dollar a mile.” 

The Clerk : “ Can’t be done ; or, at least, I can’t 
do it. W e ’re short of motive power. There is n’t 
an engine fit for the run at this end of the division.” 

Bartrow : “ Say a hundred and fifty for the trip.” 


THE HELPERS 


183 


The Clerh : “ I ’m afraid we could n’t make it, 
anyhow. We’d have to send a caller after a crew, 
and” — 

Bartrow^ sticking to his single text like a phono- 
graph set to repeat : “ Call it a hundred and seventy- 
five.” 

The Clerks in a desperate aside: “Heavens! I 
wish the old man would come ! ” — and aloud — 
“ Say, I don’t believe we could better the passenger 
schedule, even with a light engine. It ’s fast — 
four hours and twenty-five ” — 

Bartrow : “ Make it two hundred.” 

Jeffard counted out the money while the office 
operator was calling the engine-dispatcher ; and at 
eight-twenty they were pacing the station platform, 
waiting for the ordered special. Bartrow looked at 
his watch. 

“ If you get away from here at eight-thirty, you ’ll 
have three hours and thirty-five minutes for the run, 
which is just fifty minutes better than the regular 
schedule. It ’ll be nip and tuck, but if your engineer 
is any good he ’U make it. Do you know what to 
do when you reach Aspen ? ” 

“ Why, yes ; I ’ll meet Garvin when his train 
arrives, cut him out of the tangle with the sharks, get 
him on a horse and ride for life across the range.” 

“ That ’s the scheme. But what if the other fel- 
lows object ?” 

J effard straightened himseK unconsciously. “ I ’m 
not uncertain on that side ; I can fight for it, if that 
is what you mean.” 


184 


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Bartrow looked him up and down with a smile 
which was grimly approhative. “ Your summer ’s 
done you a whole lot of good, Jeffard. You look 
like a grown man.” 

“ As I did n’t when you last saw me. But I ’m 
afraid I am neither better nor worse, Dick, — 
morally.” 

“ Nonsense I You can’t help being one or the 
other. And that reminds me : you have n’t ac- 
counted for yourself yet. Can you do it in the 
hollow of a minute ? ” 

“ Just about. Garvin picked me out of the gutter 
and took me with him on this prospecting trip. 
That ’sail.” 

“ But you ought to have left word with somebody. 
It was rough on your friends to drop out as if you ’d 
dodged the undertaker.” 

“ Who was there to care ? ” 

“WeU, I cared, for one; and then there is 
Lansdale, and — and ” — 

“ I know,” said Jeffard humbly. He was hungry 
for news, but he went fasting on the thinnest paring 
of inquiry. “ Does she remember me yet?” 

Bartrow nodded. “ She ’s not of the forgetting 
kind. I never go to Denver that she does n’t ask 
me if I ’ve heard of you. But that ’s Connie Elliott, 
every day in the week. She ’s got a heartful of her 
own just now, too, I take it, but that does n’t make 
any difference. She’s everybody’s sister, just the 
same.” 

“A — a heartful of her own, you say ? I don’t 


THE HELPERS 


185 


quite understand.” Jeffard was staring intently 
down the empty railway yard, and the glistening 
lines of steel were blurred for him. 

It was a situation for a bit of merciful diplomacy, 
but Bartrow the tactless blundered on remorselessly. 

“Why, yes, — with Lansdale, you know. I 
don’t know just how far it has gone, but if I were 
going to put money on it, I ’d say she would let her 
life be shortened year for year if his could be spun 
out in proportion.” 

Jeffard brought himself up with a savage turn. 
Who was he that he should be privileged as those 
who are slain in any honorable cause ? 

“ Lansdale is no better, then ? ” 

“ I don’t know. Sometimes he thinks he is. 
But I guess it ’s written in the book ; and I ’m 
sorry — for his sake and hers. There comes your 
automobile.” 

A big engine was clanking up through the yard, 
but Jeffard did not turn to look at it. He was 
wringing Bartrow’s hand, and trying vainly to think 
of some message to send to the woman he loved. 
And at the end of it, it went unsaid. One of the 
clerks was waiting with the train-order when the 
engine steamed up ; and Jeffard was fain to clamber 
to his place in the cab, full to the lips with tender 
embassies, which would by no means array them- 
selves in words. 

Bartrow waited till he could fling his God-speed 
up to the cab window. It took the form of a part- 
ing injunction, and neither of them suspected how 
much it would involve. 


186 


THE HELPERS 


“ If you need backing in Aspen, look up Mark 
Denby. He ’s a good friend of mine ; an all-around 
business man, and a guardian angel to fellows with 
holes in the ground and no ready money. Hunt 
him up. I ’ll wire your introduction and have it 
there ahead of you. Off you go — good luck to 
you!” 

And at the word the big engine lifted its voice 
with a shout and a bell-clang, and shook itself free 
for the race. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


Fkom Leadville to the point in the sky-line of the 
Continental Divide where the southern shoulder of 
Mount Massive dips to Hagerman’s Pass, the rail- 
way grade climbs with the old Glenwood trail ; and 
when Malta was left behind and the ascent fairly 
begun, Jeffard had fleeting glimpses of the road 
over which he and Garvin and the patient burro had 
toiled eastward the day before. From outer curves 
and promontories doubled at storming speed the 
hoof-beaten trail flicked into view and disappeared ; 
and at times the brief vistas framed a reminiscent 
picture of two foot-weary pilgrims plodding doggedly 
in the wake of a pack-laden ass. 

It was impossible to conceive that these phan- 
toms belonged to to-day’s yesterday. The crowding 
events of a few hours had already pushed them into 
a far-away past ; their entities were lost in the 
kaleidoscopic whirl which had transformed the two 
men no less than their prefigurings. What had the 
foolish witling raving yonder on his way to despoil- 
ment and death with the two plunderers in common 
with the seK-contained son of the wilderness, who 
had but yesterday been his brother’s keeper in a 
world of disheartenment ? And this other ; steam- 
hurrying on his way to the same goal, with set jaw 


188 


THE HELPERS 


and tight lips and resolute purpose in his eyes ; by 
how much or little could he be identified with the 
undeterminate one, whose leaden-footed trudgings 
the storming locomotive was taking in reverse ? 

Through some such cycle the wheel of refiection 
rolled around to its starting point in things present, 
and Jeffard awoke to the moving realities of steep 
grades and breath-cutting curves, yawning abysses 
and hurtling cliffs, flitting backward to the caco- 
phone obbligato of the exhaust and the clangorous 
cries of racking machinery. The engineer braced 
on his box was a muscular giant, with the jaw of a 
prizefighter, and steel-gray eyes that had long since 
looked death out of countenance. Jeffard took his 
measure in an appraisive glance. “ If your engineer 
is good for anything,” Bartrow had said; and the 
glance slew the conditional doubt. What a fearless 
driver of fast locomotives might do toward reversing 
the fate of the besotted one would be done. 

In the mean time the race was to the judicious 
rather than to the swift. The interminable succes- 
sion of grades and curves clogged the wheels, and 
the great engine snorted and wallowed on its upward 
way, slowing down at times until the throbbing puffs 
of the escaping steam seemed to beat no more than 
leisurely minuet-time. But the climbing miles to 
the summit of the pass were measured doggedly, if 
not with speed. No trifling advantage of tangent 
or “ let-up ” was passed without fresh spurrings of 
the throttle; and when the engine swept around the 
long curve which is the approach to the telegraph 


THE HELPERS 


189 


station at the summit tunnel, the engineer glanced 
at his watch and nodded across to his passenger. 

“We ’re goin’ to make it,” he said, in answer to 
Jeffard's shouted inquiry. “It’ll be a close caU, 
but the old Ninety-seven ’s a bird.” 

At the station the operator tossed a telegram 
through the cab window. It was from Bartrow, and 
its major purpose was to give the figures of the 
assay, which he had obtained from the little German. 
They were sufficiently significant, and Bartrow’s 
added urgings were unnecessary. “ I ’m standing 
over the train dispatcher here with a club,” he 
wired. “ Don’t make any economical mistake at 
your end of the string.” 

The engineer had finished oiling around and had 
clambered back to his box. The water supply was 
replenished, and the fireman was uprearing the tank- 
spout. Jeffard crossed the footboard and thrust a 
little roU of bank notes between the fingers of the 
brawny hand on the throttle lever. The engineer 
smoothed the biUs on his knee and wagged his head 
as one doubtful. 

“ That ’s pretty well up to a month’s pay.” 

“ Well, you are going to earn it.” 

“ Better keep it till I do,” said the stalwart one, 
offering it back. 

“ No ; I ’m not afraid to pay you in advance. 
You are going to do your best, and I am not tr3ring 
to bribe you. It ’s yours, whether we make it or 
not.” 

The big man thrust the bills into his pocket and 


190 


THE HELPERS 


opened the throttle. “You go over there and sit 
down and hold your hair on,” he commanded. 
“I’m goin’ to break the record when we get out 
into daylight on the other side o’ the mountain.” 

Jeffard was stiU groping for hand and foot holds 
on the fireman’s seat when the locomotive rolled out 
of the western portal of the summit tunnel and the 
record-breaking began. Of the brain-benumbing 
rush down the gorges of the Frying Pan on a flying 
locomotive, one recalls but a confused memory ; a 
phantasmagoric jumble of cliffs and chasms, back- 
ward-flitting forests and gyrating mountain peaks, 
trestles and culverts roaring beneath the drumming 
wheels, the shrieks of the whistle and the intermit- 
tent stridor of escaping steam in the iron throat of 
the safety-valve ; a goblin dance of matter in motion 
to a war blast of chaotic uproar. One sets the 
teeth to endure, and comes back to the cosmic point 
of view with a deep-drawn sigh of relief when the 
goblin dance is over, and the engine halts at the 
junction where the Aspen branch leaves the main 
line and crosses the Frying Pan to begin the ascent 
of the Koaring Fork. 

From this point the competing railways parallel 
each other, and at the junction the trains on either 
line are within whistle call. To the engineer’s ques- 
tion the telegraph operator nodded an affirmative. 

“ Yep ; she ’s just gone by. That ’s her whistlin’ 
for Emma now. What ’s the rush ? — backed to 
beat her into Aspen ? ” 

The engineer nodded in his turn, and signed the 


THE HELPERS 


191 


order for the right of way on the branch. A min- 
ute later the junction station was also a memory, 
and Jeffard was straining his eyes for a glimpse of 
the passenger train on the other line. A short dis- 
tance to the southward the rival lines meet and cross, 
exchanging river banks for the remainder of th6 
run to Aspen. The passenger train was first at 
the crossing, and Jeffard had his glimpse as the 
engine slackened speed. Not to lose a rail-length 
in the hard-fought race, Jeffard’s man ran close to 
the crossing to await his turn, and the light engine 
came to a stand within pistol shot of the train, which 
was slowly clanking over the crossing-frogs. J effard 
slipped from his seat and went over to the engineer’s^ 
gangway. It would be worth something if he could 
make sure that Garvin was on the train. 

The espial was rewarded and punished in swift 
sequence. The trucks of the smoking - car were 
jolting over the crossing, and Jeffard saw the head 
and shoulders of the insane one filling an open win- 
dow. It was conspicuously evident that Garvin had 
drained the bottle to the frenzy mark. He was 
yelling like a lost soul, and shaking impotent fists at 
the halted engine. Jeffard’s eye measured the dis- 
tance to the moving car. It was but down one 
embankment and up the other. 

“ That ’s my man,” he said quickly to the en- 
gineer. “ Do you suppose I could make it across ? ” 

“ Dead easy,” was the reply ; and Jeffard swung 
down to the step of the engine to drop off. The 
impulse saved his life. As he quitted his hold a 


192 


THE HELPERS 


hairy arm bared to the elbow was thrust out of the 
window next to the yelling maniac. There was a 
glint of sun-rays on polished metal, and a pistol ball 
bit out the corner of the cab under the engineer’s 
arm-rest. Jeffard desisted, and climbed to his place 
when the moving train gathered headway. 

“ Damn a crazy loon, anyway,” said the engineer, 
much as one might pass the time of day. “ They ’d 
ought to have sense enough to take his gun away 
from him.” 

Jeffard explained in a sentence. “It wasn’t 
the crazy one ; it was one of the two cut-throats 
who are kidnaping him — the fellows I ’m trying 
to beat.” 

“ The fellers you ’re goin’ to beat,” corrected the 
engineer. “ We’U head ’em off now if the Ninety- 
seven goes in on three legs. The gall o’ the cusses ! 
— why, they might ha’ shot somebody! ” 

From the crossing in the lower valley neither line 
encounters any special obstacle to speed ; and under 
equal conditions a locomotive race up the Roaring 
Fork might be an affair of seconds and rail lengths 
for the victor. But the light engine with regardless 
orders speedily distanced the passenger train with 
stops to make ; and when the smokes of the moun- 
tain-girt town at the head of the valley came in 
sight, the big engineer pulled his watch and shouted 
triumphant : — 

“ Eleven - forty, — and their time ’s twelve - five. 
We ’ll be twenty minutes to the good in spite o’ ” — 

It is conceivable that he would have used a strong 


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193 


figure, but the depravity of things inanimate took 
the word out of his mouth. There was a tearing 
crash to the rear ; a shock as if a huge projectile 
had overtaken them ; and the flying locomotive came 
to earth like an eagle with a mangled wing. It was 
a broken axle under the tender ; a tested steel shaft 
which had outlived the pounding race across the 
mountains only to fall apart in the last level mile of 
the home stretch. J effard clambered down with the 
enginemen, and saw defeat, crushing and definite, 
in the wreck under the tender. But the big en- 
gineer was a man for a crisis. One glance at the 
wreck sufficed, and the fireman got his orders in 
shot-like sentences. ' 

“ Up with you, Tom, and give her the water, — 
both injectors ! Drop me the sledge, and get the 
pinch-bar under the head o’ that couplin’-pin when 
I drive it up. Give her a scoop ’r two o’ coal — 
’nough to run in with. By cripes ! we ’U beat ’em 
yet ! ” 

The minced oath came from beneath the engine, 
and was punctuated by mighty upward blows of the 
sledge hammer on the coupling-pin, whose head was 
rising by half-inch impulses from its seat in the foot- 
plate. Jeffard saw and understood. The engineer 
meant to cut loose from the wreck and finish the 
run without the tender. 

“ Use me if you can,” he offered. “ What shall 
Ido?” 

“Climb up there and help Tom with that bar. 
If we can pull this pin we ’re in it yet.” 


194 


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Jeffard laid hold with the fireman, and together 
they pried at the reluctant pin. It yielded at length, 
but when the engineer had disconnected the water 
and air hose and mounted to his place in the cab, 
the roar of the oncoming passenger train was ajar in 
the air. 

“ You stay with the wreck, Tom, and flag it ! ” 
was the final command ; and then to J effard, as the 
engine shot away from its disabled member : “ How 

much time have you got to have ? ” 

“ I don’t know. It depends upon how much 
those fellows have found out, and how drunk my 
partner is. At the worst, a minute or two will 
serve.” 

It was still to be had, but in the very yard a 
thrown switch intervened, and the small margin 
vanished. The passenger train was in, and Jeffard 
saw defeat again ; but he dropped from the locomo- 
tive and ran up the yard, forgetting in the heat of 
it that he had elided two meals in the twenty-four 
hours. The final dash brought its reward. He 
took the first vehicle that offered and reached the 
principal hotel in time to see Garvin and his keepers 
descend from a carriage at the entrance. 

“ Yes, sir ; in one moment. Those three fellows 
who came in just now ? They ’ve gone up to their 
room. Be with us over night ? ” 

Thus the hotel clerk in answer to Jeffard’s gasp- 
ing inquiry. To whom the proletary, fighting de- 
sperately for some semblance of equanimity : — 

“I — I ’ll be here indefinitely ; no, I have no 


THE HELPERS 


195 


baggage ; I ’ll pay in advance. Can you give me 
the room next to these men ? The crazy one is my 
partner, and I ’ll be responsible for him.” 

The clerk hesitated, but Jeffard won his cause 
without knowing it by the necessary parade of bank- 
notes in the pecuniary affair. 

“ Certainly, sir ; the boy will show you up. You 
won’t trouble him ? All right ; Number Nineteen — 
second floor, third door to the right. Dinner is 
served, when you ’re ready.” 

If Jeffard had forgotten his directions the up- 
roar in Number Eighteen would have guided him. 
Garvin’s voice, uplifted in alternate malediction and 
maudlin bathos, jarred upon the air of the corridor. 
Jeffard paused. The long chase was ended and 
only a pine door intervened between pursuer and 
pursued. He laid a hand on the doorknob. His 
breath came hard, and the veins in his forehead 
were like knotted whipcords. While he paused 
some broken babblings from within wrought a swift 
change in him. The knotted veins relaxed and he 
laughed, not mirthfully but with a cynical upcurve 
of the lip. His hand slipped from the doorknob, 
and he stole away, cat-like, to let himself noiselessly 
into the adjoining room. 

There was a door of communication between the 
two rooms, bolted on Jeffard’s side, and with the 
knob removed. He went on his knees to the square 
hole through the lock, but the angle of vision in- 
cluded no more than a blank patch of the opposite 
wall. Then he laid his ear to the aperture. Out 


196 


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of the jangling discord beyond the door came frag- 
mentary lucidities pieceable together into a strand 
of sequence. Garvin had told all he knew, or all 
he could remember, and the robbery paused at the 
trivial detail of the most feasible route over the 
mountains from Aspen. But to make sure, and 
possibly to provide against the contingency of having 
to eliminate Garvin, some rude map was needed ; 
and this one of the plunderers was evidently try- 
ing to draw under instructions from the witling. 
At the mention of a map, Jeffard rummaged his 
pockets without taking his ear from the door. From 
one of them he drew a crumpled bit of paper, 
thumbed and crease-broken. It was Garvin’s map 
of the claim and the trail, passed over for inspection 
in the hoUow of a certain lambent evening months 
before and never returned. 

Who shall say what was behind the inscrutable 
darkling of the eyes of him when he returned the 
paper to his pocket and bent to listen with four 
senses lending their acuteness to the fifth ? Was it 
a softening memory of the loving-kindnesses of one 
James Garvin to a man soul-sick and body-wasted, 
snatched as a charred brand out of a fire of his own 
kindling ? Or was it the stirring of a ruthless devil 
of self ; a devil never more than dormant in any 
heart insurgent ; a feU demon of the pit whose 
arousing waits only upon opportunity, whose power 
is to transform pity into remorseless ingratitude and 
ruth into relentless greed? There was room for 
the alternative. 


THE HELPERS 


197 


“ Here ; take another nip o’ this and pull your- 
seK together,” — it was the voice of the hawk-faced 
one. “ If you was n’t such a howlin’ idiot you ’d see 
that we ’re the only friends you ’ve got. I keep 
a-tellin’ you that that slick pardner o’ yours was on 
that wild ingine, and if you don’t sink a shaft on 
your wits he ’s a-goin’ to do you up cold ! ” 

The appeal brought blood as a blow. The crash 
of an overturned chair was followed by an explosion 
of cursings, the outcries of a soul in torment. And 
when the madman choked in the fullness of it, a 
voice said : “ Pick up that chair, Pete, and pull him 
down. He ’ll be seein’ things in a minute, and 
that ’ll settle the whole shootin’-match.” There was a 
struggle short but violent, the jar of a forcible down- 
setting, and a sound as of one flinging his arms abroad 
upon the table. After which the tormented one be- 
came brokenly articulate. What he said is unre- 
cordable. With maudlin oath and thick-tongued 
ravings he rehearsed his fancied wrongs and breathed 
forth promises of vengeance, calling down the wrath 
of the spheres upon one Henry Jeffard and his pos- 
terity to the third and fourth generation. 

“ That ’s aU right ; I ’d kill him on sight, if I 
was you. But just now you ’re killin’ time, instid. 
First you know, he’ll be on his way acrost the 
range, and then where T1 you be ? You don’t even 
know that he did n’t locate that claim before you 
came out. Git down to business and tell us where 
that valley is, if you ever knowed. You said it was 
on a creek ” — 


198 


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Jeffard rose and went softly across the room to 
sit on the edge of the bed. The unfathomable light 
was stiU in his eyes, and his thought wrought itself 
into words. 

“ It ’s done ; they ’ll wring it out of him, and then 
fling him aside like so much offal. I wonder if it is 
worth while to try to save it — for him. What good 
would it do him ? — or, rather, what evil thing is 
there that it would n’t make possible for him ? What 
devil of curiosity led me to open this Pandora-box 
of responsibility? For I am responsible, first for 
the finding, and now for the keeping, and hereafter 
for what shall come of it. That is, if I save it — 
for him.” He got upon his feet and tiptoed back 
to the door of communication, listening once more. 
The clamor had quieted down, and the scratching of 
a pen gnawed the silence. Then came the voice of 
the hawk-faced one. 

“ There she is ; you sign your name right there 
and it ’U be all right. It ’s the only way ; you ’re 
too drunk to pull strings with that pardner o’ yours, 
and we ’re goin’ to stand by you, see ? All we want 
is the authority.” 

Jeffard started back and made as if he would 
fling himself against the locked door. Then he 
thought better of it. 

“That simplifies it,” he mused, pacing up and 
down with noiseless steps. “He has signed away 
whatever right he had, and now it ’s my turn. If I 
pay the price I can checkmate them. But can I 
pay the price ? Surely, if any man can ; I, who 


THE HELPERS 


199 


have deliberately turned my back upon the world’s 
approval for a much less thing. And in the end 
the money will atone.” 

A stir in the adjoining room admonished him that 
the time for action had come. He wheeled quickly 
and let himself into the corridor. A key was rat- 
tling in the lock of Number Eighteen as he passed, 
but he found the stair before the bolt was shot. In 
the lobby he stopped to ask a hurried question of a 
man who was opening his mail at the public writing- 
table. The question was answered curtly, but the 
man left his letters and went to the door to point 
the reply. 

“I see it; thank you,” said Jeffard; and went 
his way rapidly, with now and then a glance behind 
him as if to make sure that he was not followed. 

In a few minutes he came back, walking slowly, 
with his head down and his hands in the pockets of 
the brown duck miner’s coat. There was a knot of 
loungers in front of the hotel, gathered about the 
door and peering in ; a group of curious ones, which 
grew by accretions from the by-passers. A disturb- 
ance of some sort was afoot in the lobby — two 
persuasive ones struggling peaceably with a drunken 
man, while the bystanders looked on with smiles 
pitying or cynical, each after his kind. 

Jeffard pushed into the circle, and those who re- 
marked him said that he seemed to see nothing but 
the struggling trio. Some of the onlookers were 
near enough to hear what he said to the two who 
were not drunk. 


200 


THE HELPERS 


“ The game is closed, gentlemen, and you are out 
of it. When you get on the ground you will find 
the claim located — in my name.” 

Two right hands made simultaneous backward 
dips, and two potential murderers apparently realized 
the folly of it at the same instant. But the drunken 
one spun around with his face ablaze, a fiercer mad- 
ness than that of drink burning in his bloodshot 
eyes. 

“You? You played the sneak an’ located hit 
behind my back ? In your name, d’ ye say ? — your 
name ? W ell, by God, you hain’t got a name ! ” 

A pistol cracked with the oath, and Jeffard put 
his hands to his head and pitched forward. The 
crowd feU back aghast, to surge inward again with 
a rush when the reaction came. Then a shout was 
raised at the door, and the haggard manslayer, cured 
now of all madness save that of fear, burst through 
the inpressing throng and disappeared. 


CHAPTEK XIX 


Even in a Colorado mining town a shooting affray 
at midday in the lobby of the principal hotel creates 
more or less of a sensation, and it was fully fifteen 
minutes before the buzz of public comment subsided 
sufficiently to suffer Mr. Mark Denby to go back to 
his letters and telegrams. He had made one in the 
circle of onlookers ; had seen and heard, and, now 
that the wounded man had been carried to his room 
and cared for, and the hunt was up and afield for 
the would-be murderer, was willing to forget. But 
a traveling salesman at the opposite blotting-pad 
must needs keep the pool astir. 

“ Say, was n’t that the most cold-blooded thing 
you ever saw ? ’X gad ! I ’ve heard that these 
Western towns were fearfully tough, but I had no 
idea a man would n’t be safe to sit down and write 
his house in the lobby of a decent hotel. ’Pon my 
word, I actually heard the ‘ zip ’ of that bullet ! ” 

Denby looked across at the hinderer of oblivion, 
and remembered that the salesman had been well to 
the rear of the battery in action. Wherefore he 
said, with a touch of the gravest irony: “You’ll 
get used to it, after a bit. Suppose you take a spin 
around the block in the open air ; that will doubtless 
steady your nerves so you can write the house with- 
out a quiver.” 


202 


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“ Think it would ? I believe I ’ll try it ; I can’t 
hold a pen still to save my life. But say, I might 
happen to run up against that fellow, and he might 
recognize me and think I was after him.” 

“ In which case he would in aU probability draw 
and quarter you and take your scalp for a memento. 
On second thought, I don’t know but you ’re safer 
where you are.” 

The mere suggestion was perspiratory, and the 
traveling man mopped his face. But there are occa- 
sions when one must talk or burst, and presently he 
began again. 

“ Say, I suppose they ’ll lynch that fellow if they 
catch him, won’t they ? ” 

The badgered one came to attention with a fine- 
lined frown of annoyance radiating fan-like above 
his eyes. He was of the stuff of which man-masters 
are made ; a well-knit figure of a man, rather under 
than over the average of height and breadth, but so 
fairly proportioned as to give the impression of un- 
measured strength in reserve, — the strength of steel 
under silk. His face was bronzed with the sun-stain 
of the altitudes, but it was as smooth as a child’s, 
and beardless, with thin lips and masterful eyes of 
the sort that can look unmoved upon things un- 
namable. 

“ Lynch him ? Oh, no ; you do us an injustice,” 
he said, and the tone was quite as level as the eye- 
volley. “We don’t lynch people out here for shoot- 
ing, — only for talking too much.” 

Whereat one may picture unacclimated loquacity 


THE HELPERS 


203 


gasping and silenced, with the owner of the “ Chinca- 
pin ” and other listed properties going on to read 
his letters and telegrams in peace. The process 
furthered itself in the sequence of well - ordered 
dispatch until a message, damp from the copying- 
press and dated at Leadville, came to the surface. 
It covered two of the yellow sheets in the spacious 
handwiiting of the receiving operator, and Denby 
read it twice, and yet once again, before laying it 
aside. Whatever it was, it was not suffered to in- 
terrupt the orderly sequence of things ; and Denby 
had read the last of the letters before he held up a 
summoning finger for a bell-boy. 

“ Go and ask the clerk the name of the man who 
was shot, will you ? ’’ 

The information came in two words, and the 
querist gathered up his papers and sent the boy for 
his room key. At the stairhead he met the surgeon 
and stopped him to ask about the wounded man. 

“ How are you. Doctor ? What is the verdict ? 
Is there a fighting chance for him ? ” 

“ Oh, yes ; much more than that. It is n’t as 
bad as it might have been ; the skull is n’t fractured. 
But it was enough to knock him out under the cir- 
cumstances. He had skipped two or three meals, 
he tells me, and was under a pretty tense strain of 
excitement.” 

“ Then he is conscious ? ” 

The physician laughed. “ Very much so. He is 
sitting up to take my prescription, — which was a 
square meal. Whatever the strain was, it is n’t off 


204 


THE HELPERS 


yet. He insists that he must mount and ride this 
afternoon if he has to be lashed in the saddle ; has 
already ordered a horse, in fact. He is plucky.” 

“ Then he is able to talk business, I suppose.” 

“ Able, yes ; but if you can get anything out of 
him, you ’ll do better than I could. He won’t talk, 
— won’t even tell what the row was about.” 

“Won’t he?” The man of affairs crossed the 
corridor and tapped on the door of Number Nine- 
teen. There was no response, and he turned the 
knob and entered. The shades were drawn and 
there was a cleanly odor of aseptics in the air of the 
darkened room. The wounded man was propped 
among pillows on the bed, with a well-furnished tea- 
tray on his knees. He gave prompt evidence of his 
ability to talk. 

“ Back again, are you ? I told you I had nothing 
to say for publication, and I meant it.” This wrath- 
fuUy ; then he discovered his mistake, but the tone 
of the careless apology was scarcely more concilia- 
tory. “ Oh — excuse me. I thought it was the 
reporter.” 

Bartrow’s correspondent found a chair and intro- 
duced himself with charitable directness. “ My 
name is Denby. I am here because Mr. Richard 
Bartrow wires me to look you up.” 

Jeffard delayed the knife and fork play long 
enough to say : “ Denby ? — oh, yes ; I remember. 
Thank you,” and there the interview bade fair to 
die of inanition. Jeffard went on with his dinner 
as one who eats to live ; and Denby tilted his chair 


THE HELPERS 


205 


gently and studied his man as well as he might in 
the twilight of the drawn shades. After a time, he 
said : — 

“ Bartrow bespeaks my help for you. He says 
your affair may need expediting : does it?’’ 

Jeffard’s rejoinder was almost antagonistic. “ How 
much do you know of the affair?” 

“ What the whole town knows by this time — 
added to what little Bartrow tells me in his wire. 
You or your partner have stumbled upon an aban- 
doned claim which promises to be a bonanza. One 
of you — public rumor is a h’ttle uncertain as to 
which one — tried to euchre the other ; and it seems 
that you have won in the race to the Recorder’s 
office, and have come out of it alive. Is that the 
sununary ? ” 

He called it public rumor, but it was rather a 
shrewd guess. Jeffard did not hasten to confirm it. 
On the contrary, his reply was evasive. 

“ You may call it an hypothesis — a working 
hypothesis, if you choose. What then ? ” 

The promoter was not of those who swerve from 
conclusions. “ It follows that you are a stout fighter, 
and a man to be helped, or a very great rascal,” he 
said coolly. 

Again the knife and fork paused, and the 
wounded man’s gaze was at least as steady as that of 
his conditional accuser. “ It may simplify matters, 
Mr. Denby, if I say that I expect nothing from 
public rumor.” 

The mine-owner shrugged his shoulders as an un- 


THE HELPERS 


206 

willing arbiter who would fain wash his hands of the 
ethical entanglement if he could. 

“ It ’s your own affair, of course, — the public 
opinion part of it. But it may prove to be worth 
your while not to ignore the suffrages of those who 
make and unmake reputations.” 

“ Why ? ” 

“ Because you will need capital, — honest capital, 
— and” — 

He left the sentence in the air, and Jeffard 
brought it down with a cynical stonecast. 

“ And, under the circumstances, an honest capital- 
ist might hesitate, you would say. Possibly ; but 
capital, as I know it, is not so discriminating when 
the legal requirements are satisfied. There will be 
no question of ownership involved in the development 
of the ‘ Midas.’ ” 

“ Legal ownership, you mean ? ” 

“ Legal or otherwise. When the time for invest- 
ment comes, I shall be abundantly able to assure the 
capitalist.” 

“To guarantee the investment : doubtless. But 
capital is not always as unscrupulous as you seem to 
think.” 

“ No ? ” — the tilt of the negative was almost 
aggressive. “ There are borrowers and borrowers, 
Mr. Denby. It ’s the man without collateral who 
is constrained to make a confidant of his banker.” 

The blue-gray eyes of the master of men looked 
their levelest, and the clean - shaven face was 
shrewdly inscrutable. “ Pardon me, Mr. Jeffard, 


THE HELPERS 


207 


but there are men who could n’t borrow with the 
Orizaba behind them.” 

Jeffard parried the eye-thrust, and brushed the 
generalities aside in a sentence. 

“ All of which is beside the mark, and I have 
neither the strength nor the inclination to flail it 
out with you. As you say, I shall need capital — 
yours or another’s. State the case — yours, or mine, 
— in so many words, if you please.” 

“ Briefly, then : the equity in this affair lies be- 
tween you and the man who tried to kiU you. I 
mean by this that the bonanza is either yours or his. 
If it were a partnership discovery there would have 
been no chance for one of you to overreach the 
other. You ’U hardly deny that there was a sharp 
fight for possession ; you both advertised that fact 
pretty liberally.” 

Jeffard was listening with indifference, real or 
feigned, and he neither denied nor affirmed. “ Go 
on.” 

“ From the point of view of an unprejudiced 
observer the evidence is against your partner. He 
comes here drunk and abusive, in company with two 
men whose faces would condemn them anywhere, and 
squanders his lead in the race in a supplementary 
carouse. And a little later, when he finds that you 
have outclassed him, he shoots you down like a dog 
in a fit of drunken fury. To an impartial onlooker 
the inference is fairly obvious.’’ 

“ And that is ? ” — 

“ That your partner is the scoundrel ; that the 


208 


THE HELPERS 


discovery is yours, and that he and his accomplices 
were trying to rob you. I don’t mind saying that 
this is my own inference, but I shall be glad to have 
it confirmed.” 

Jeffard looked up quickly. “ Then Bartrow 
has n’t told you ” — 

“ Bartrow’ s message was merely introductory ; 
two pages of eulogy, in fact, as any friendly office 
of Dick’s is bound to be. He doesn’t go into 
details.” 

Jeffard put the tea-tray aside and with it the air 
of abstraction, and in a better light his interlocutor 
would not have failed to remark the swift change 
from dubiety to assurance. 

“Wni you bear with me, Mr. Denby, if I say 
that your methods are a little indirect ? You say 
that the evidence is against James Garvin, and yet 
you give me to understand that it will be well if I 
can clear myself.” 

“ Exactly ; a word of assurance is sometimes 
worth many deductions.” 

“ But if, for reasons of my own, I refuse to say 
the word ? ” 

The promoter’s shrug was barely perceptible. 
“ I don’t see why you should refuse.” 

Jeffard went silent at that, lying back with closed 
eyes and no more than a twitching of the lips to show 
that he was not asleep. After what seemed an in- 
terminable interval to the mine-owner, he said : — 

“ I do refuse, for the present. A few days later, 
when I have done what I have to do, there will be 


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209 


time enough to discuss ways and means — and 
ethics, if you still feel inclined that way. May I 
trouble you to run that window-shade up ? He 
was sitting on the edge of the bed and groping 
beneath it for his shoes. 

The promoter admitted the light and ventured a 
question. 

“ What are you going to do ? ” 

“ Get on the ground with the least possible 
delay.” 

The shoes were found, but when the wounded one 
bent to lace them the room spim around and he 
would have fallen if Denby had not caught him. 

“ You ’re not fit,” said the master of men, not un- 
sympathetically. “ You could n’t sit a horse if your 
life depended upon it.” 

“ I must ; therefore I can and will,” Jeffard as- 
serted, with fine determination. “ Be good enough 
to ask the bell-boy to come in and lace my shoes.” 

The man with a mission to compel other men 
smiled. His fetish was indomitable resolution, for 
himself first, and afterward for those who deserved ; 
and here was a man who, whatever his lacks and 
havings in the ethical field, was at least courageous. 
Having admitted so much, the promoter went down 
on one’ knee to lace the courageous one’s shoes, dis- 
suading him, meanwhile. 

“ You can’t go to-day ; the wound-fever will come 
on presently, and you ’ll be a sick man. Let it rest 
a while. Having put himself on the criminal side 
of the fence by trying to kill you, your partner will 


210 


THE HELPERS 


hardly dare to jump the claim in person ; he will 
have to find a proxy, and that will ask for time, — 
more time than the sherifp-dodging will permit.’^ 

“ His proxies are here, and they will act without 
instructions from him,” said Jeffard, with his hands 
to his head and his teeth set to keep the words from 
shaping themselves into a groan. 

“ You mean the two who were with him ? ” 

“ Yes. So far as the present fight is concerned, 
the three are one ; and two of them are stiU free to 
act.” 

“ So ? — that ’s different.” Denhy finished tying 
the second shoe and rose to begin measuring a sen- 
tinel’s beat between the window and the door, pacing 
evenly with his brows knitted and his hands clasped 
behind him. “ You know what to expect, then ? ” 

“ I know that I have been twice shot at within the 
past two hours, and that the moments are golden.” 

“ But you are in no condition to go in and hold it 
alone ! You ’ll have to meet force with force. You 
ought to have at least three or four good men with 
you.” 

“ What I have to do presupposes a clear field,” 
said Jeffard guardedly. “If it should come to 
blows, the discussion of — of ethics will be in- 
definitely postponed, I ’m afraid.” 

“ Humph ! I suppose your reasons are as strong 
as your obstinacy. How far is it to your claim ? ” 

“ I don’t know the exact distance ; about twenty 
miles, I believe. But there is a mountain range 
intervening.” 


THE HELPERS 


211 


“ You can’t ride it in your present condition ; it ’s 
a sheer physical impossibility.” 

“ I shall ride it.” 

“ What is the use of being an ass ? ” demanded 
the master of men, losing patience for once in a way. 
“ Don’t you see you can’t stand alone ? ” 

Jeffard struggled to his feet and wavered across 
the room to a chair. Denby laughed, — a quiet 
little chuckle of appreciation. 

“ I did n’t mean literally ; I meant in the business 
affair. “ You ’ll have to have help from the start. 
That means that you will have to trust some one. 
From what you say it is evident that there will be 
an immediate attempt made to jump the claim ; an 
attempt which will be afoot and on the ground long 
before you can get there. Let us be reasonable and 
take hold of the live facts. I have a man here who 
is both capable and trustworthy. Let me send him 
in with a sufficient force to stand off the jumpers 
until you are able to hold your own.” 

Jeffard shook his head. “ I can’t do it, unreason- 
able as it may seem. I must go first and alone. 
That is another mystery, you wiU say, but I can’t 
help it. If I win through it alive I shall be here 
again in a day or two, ready to talk business. More 
than that I can’t say now.” 

Denby’s thin lips came together in a straight line, 
with a click of the white teeth behind them. As 
you please. I am not going about to prove to you 
that you would lose nothing by trusting me from the 
start. Can I do anything toward helping you off ? ” 


212 


THE HELPERS 


“Yes ; you can give me your shoulder down the 
stair and a lift into the saddle.” 

The little journey to the ground floor was made 
in silence. When they were passing the desk the 
clerk said : “ Your horse is at the door, Mr. Jef- 
fard. I was just about to send up word. Are you 
feeling better ? ” 

“ I am all right.” He leaned heavily on the 
counter and paid his bill. “Did the liveryman 
leave any message ? ” 

“ No, only to say that he has stocked the saddle- 
bags as you directed.” 

The personally conducted journey went on to the 
sidewalk, and Denby heaved the wounded one into 
the saddle, steadying him therein till the vertigo 
loosed its hold. 

“ Anything else you can delegate ? ” 

“ No, thank you ; nothing that I think of.” 

“ You are stiU determined to go ? ” 

“ Quite determined.” 

“Well, you are a stubborn madman, and I rather 
like you for it ; that ’s all I have to say. Good luck 
to you.” 

Jeffard gathered the reins and sat reflective what 
time the broncho sniffed the cool breeze pouring 
down from the higher slopes of the western range. 
When the horse would have set out, Jeffard re- 
strained him yet another moment. 

“You intimated a few minutes ago that I was 
afraid to trust you, Mr. Denby,” he said, picking 
and choosing among the words as one who has a 


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213 


difficult course to steer. “ I do trust you as far as 
I can trust any one at the present crisis, and I ’ll 
prove it.” He drew a crumpled bit of paper from 
his pocket, and smoothed it upon the pommel of the 
saddle. “ Here is a rough map of the claim and 
the trails by which it may be reached. If I ’m not 
back in Aspen in three days, fit out your expedition 
and go in prepared to take and hold the property. 
The men you will find in possession will be robbers, 
— and murderers, — and you may have to fight for 
it ; but that won’t matter. In the right-hand tun- 
nel wall, a few feet from the entrance, you wiU see 
a crevice where the dynamite was kept. In the 
bottom of that crevice you ’ll find my last will and 
testament, and I ’m going to believe that you will 
carry out its provisions to the letter.” 

The promoter’s smile was of grinmess, with quar- 
terings of approval. 

“ Which is to say that you ’U be safely dead and 
buried. Barring your idiotic stubbornness, you are 
a man after my own heart, Mr. Jeffard, and I ’ll 
willingly be your executor. Are you armed ? ” 

“ No ; I told you it would depend upon speed. I 
have no weapons.” 

“ What I And you are going on a forlorn hope 
"with an even chance of having to fight for your life ? 
Wait a minute.” 

He ran back into the hotel, coming out again 
presently with a repeating rifle and a weU-fiUed 
cartridge belt. “ There is such a thing as cold 
nerve carried to the vanishing point in foolhardiness, 


214 


THE HELPERS 


Mr. Jeffard,” he said. “ Put this belt on while I 
sling the rifle under the saddle-flap. Can you shoot 
straight ? ” 

“ It is extremely doubtful. A little target prac- 
tice as a boy ” — 

“ Target practice ! — and you may have to stand 
off a gang of desperadoes who can clip coins at a 
hundred yards ! You ’d better reconsider and give 
me time to organize a posse.” 

“ No ; thank you — for that and everything else. 
Good-by.” 

Denby stood on the curb and watched his man 
ride slowly up the street and take the turn toward 
the southern mountains. After which he went back 
to his place at the public writing-table in the lobby, 
picking up the hotel stenographer on the way. For a 
preoccupied half-hour he dictated steadily, and when 
the last letter was answered got up to pace out the 
transcribing interval. In the midst of it he drifted 
out to the sidewalk and stood staring absently up 
the street, as, an hour earlier, he had gazed after the 
lessening figure of the obstinate one. But this time 
there were two horsemen in the field of vision wend- 
ing their way leisurely to the street-end. Denby, 
thinking pointedly of other things, saw them and 
saw them not ; but when they, too, took the turn to 
the southward, he came alive to the probabilities in 
the heart of an instant. 

“ By aU that ’s good ! — they ’re after him, as sure 
as fate ! ” he muttered ; and a little later he was 
quizzing the proprietor of a livery stable around the 
comer. 


THE HELPERS 


215 


“ Do you know those two fellows who have just 
left, Thompson ? ” 

“ You bet I don’t ; and I made ’em put up the 
collateral for the whole outfit before they got away.” 

“ Where did you say they were going ? ” 

“ Did n’t say, did I ? But somewheres up Jack- 
foot Gulch was what they told me.” 

“ H’m ; that is east. And just now they are 
riding in another direction. You sold them the 
horses, you say ? ” 

The man grinned. “ Temp’rarily. I ’ll take ’em 
back at the same price, less the tariff, if I ever see 
’em again. I ain’t takin’ no chances on stray 
strangers with any such lookin’-glass-bustin’ faces 
as they ’ve got. Not much, Mary Ann.” 

“ It is well to be careful. Have you seen my 
man Donald since dinner ? ” 

“ Yes ; he was here just now and said he ’d be 
back again. Want him? ” 

Denby looked at his watch. “ Yes. If he does n’t 
come back within five minutes, send some of the boys 
out to hunt him up. Tell him to outfit for himself 
and me for two days, and to be at the hotel at 
three, sharp. Give him the best horses you can lay 
your hands on.” 

“ Always yours to command, Mr. Denby. Any- 
thing else ? ” 

“ That ’s all.” 

The promoter left the stable and walked quickly 
to the hotel. At the entrance he met an acquaint- 
ance and stopped to pass the time of day. 


216 


THE HELPERS 


“ How are you, Eoberts ? — By the way, you are 
just the man I wanted to see ; saves me a trip to 
the Court House. Did a fellow named Jelfard, 
J-e-f-f-a^-r-d, file a notice and affidavit on a claim 
called the ‘ Midas’ just after dinner ? ” 

“ No. He came over to ask me if there was any 
way in which he could secure himself. It seems 
that he neglected to post a notice on the claim be- 
fore coming out with his samples, — why, he did n’t 
explain.” 

Denby nodded and went on, talking to himself. 
“ So ! — that ’s his little mystery, is it ? The ‘ Midas’ 
is n’t located yet, and until he gets that notice posted 
and recorded, it ’s anybody’s bonanza. I hope 
Donald can pick up the trail and follow it. If he 
can’t, there ’ll be one plucky fellow less in the 
world, and two more thugs to be hanged, later on.” 


CHAPTER XX 


A TOPOGRAPHICAL map of that portion of the. 
Saguache known as the Elk Mountain Range — the 
spur which forms the watershed between the Gunni- 
son and the Grand — will include a primeval valley 
gashing the range southeastward from Tourtelotte 
on the Ashcroft trail, and heading fifteen miles 
farther wildernessward in a windswept pass across 
the summit of the watershed. Its watercourse, a 
tumbling torrent fed by the melting snows in the 
higher gulches, is a tributary of the Roaring Fork; 
and a disused pack-trail, which once served a scat- 
tered pioneer corps of prospectors, climbs by tortuous 
stages to the windswept pass, now swerving from 
bank to bank of the stream, and now heading a 
lateral gulch or crossing the point of a barrier spur. 

It is a crystalline afternoon in mid-autumn. In- 
dian summer on the high plateaus of the continent’s 
crest there is none, but instead, a breathing space of 
life-giving days, with the bouquet of fine old wine 
in the keen-edged air, and of frosty nights when the 
stars swing clear in illimitable space. Positive 
coloring, other than the sombre greens of pine and 
fir, is lacking. The season of bursting buds and 
quickening leaf tints is over, and what little decidu- 
ous vegetation the altitude permits is present only 


218 


THE HELPERS 


in twig traceries and sun-cured range grass. In the 
heart of the vaUey the heights are heavily wooded, 
and the sombre greens wall out the world to the sky- 
line ; but farther on bald slopes and ridges stretch 
away above the pines and firs, and the blue arch 
of the firmament springs clear from snow-capped 
abutments of fallow dim and weathered gray. 

In the upper levels of the valley the disused trail 
leaves the stream and begins to climb by loops and 
zigzags to the pass. On the reverse curve of one of 
the loops — the last but one in the upward path — 
a solitary horseman sends his mount recklessly on- 
ward, heedless alike of stones of stumbling and the 
breath-cutting steepness of the way. His head is 
bandaged, and he rides loose in the saddle like a 
drunken man, swaying and reeling, but evermore 
urging the horse by word and blow and the drum- 
ming of unspurred heels. His feet are thrust far 
into the stirrups, and at every fresh vantage point 
he steadies himself by pommel and cantle to scan 
the backward windings of the trail. A man riding 
desperately for his life and against time, with a 
handicap of physical unfitness, one would say ; but 
there would seem to be fierce determination in the 
unrelenting onpush, as if wounds and weariness 
were as yet no more than spurs to goad and whips 
to drive. 

The reverse curve of the loop ends on the crest 
of the last of the barrier spurs, and at the crown of 
the ascent the forest thins to right and left, opening 
a longer backward vista. On the bare summit the 


THE HELPERS 


219 


rider turns once more in his saddle, and the rear- 
ward glance becomes a steady eye-sweep. In the 
bight of the loop which he has just traversed the 
trail swings clear of the gulch timber, and while 
he gazes two dark objects advancing abreast and 
alternately rising and falling to a distance-softened 
staccato of pounding hoofs cross the open space and 
double the loop. The wounded one measures his 
lead. For all his spurrings the distance is decreas- 
ing ; and a hasty survey of the trail ahead is not 
reassuring. From the bald summit of the spur the 
bridle path winds around the head of another gulch, 
and the approach to the pass on the farther side is a 
snow-banked incline, above timber line, uncovered, 
and within easy rifle-shot of the hill of reconnais- 
sance. What will befall is measurably certain. If 
he attempts to head the traversing ravine on the 
trail, his pursuers will reach the bald summit, wait, 
and pick him off at their leisure while he is scaling 
the opposite snowbank. 

At the second glance a dubious alternative offers. 
The gorge in the direct line may not prove impass- 
able ; there is a slender chance that one may push 
straight across and up the opposing slope to the 
pass before the guns of the enemy can be brought 
into position. Wherefore he sends the horse at a 
reckless gaUop down the descent to the gorge, mak- 
ing shift to cling with knee and heel while he disen- 
gages a rifle from its sling under the saddle-flap, 
and Alls its magazine with cartridges from a belt at 
liis waist. 


220 


THE HELPERS 


At the bottom of the ravine the alternative 
vanishes ; becomes a thing inexistent, in fact. The 
gorge in its lower length is a canyoned slit, a barrier 
to be passed only by creatures with wings. To re- 
turn is to meet his pursuers on the bald summit of 
the spur ; to hesitate is equally hazardous. The 
horse obeys the sudden wrenching of the rein, spins 
as on a pivot, and darts away up the canyon brink. 
Fortunately, the timber is sparse, and, luckily again, 
a practicable crossing is found well within the longer 
detour traced by the trail. For the second time 
that day it is a race to the swift ; and, as before, an 
accident comes between. Horse and man are across 
the ravine, are clear of the stunted firs, are mount- 
ing the final snow-banked incline to the pass with 
no more than a trooper’s dash between them and 
safety, when the sure-footed beast slips on the packed 
snow of the trail, and horse and man roll together to 
the bottom of the declivity. 

A few hours earlier this man had been the foot- 
ball of circumstances, tossed hither and yon as the 
buffetings of chance might impel him. But the 
pregnant hours have wrought a curious change in 
him, for better or worse, and before the breath- 
cutting plunge is checked he is free of the struggling 
horse and is kicking it to its feet to mount and ride 
again, charging the steep uprising with plying lash 
and digging heels and shouts of encouragement. 
Ten seconds later the trail is regained and the sum- 
mit of the pass cuts the sky-line above him. Ten 
other flying leaps and a resolute man may hold an 


THE HELPERS 


221 


army at bay. But in the midst of them comes a 
clatter of hoofs on the rocky headland across the 
gulch, and a nerve-melting instant wherein the hoof- 
beats cease and the bleak heights give back a muffled 
echo in the rarefied air. The hunted one bends to 
the saddle-horn at the crack of the rifle, and the 
bullet sings high. A second is better aimed, and at 
the shrill hiss of it the snorting horse flattens its 
ears and lunges at the ascent with flagging powers 
fear-revived. A scrambling bound or two and the 
final height is gained, but in the pivoting instant 
between danger and safety a third bullet scores the 
horse’s back and embeds itself in the cantle of the 
saddle with a benumbing shock to the rider. 

But by this the fugitive is fair Berserk-mad, and 
those who would stay him must shoot to kill. Once 
out of range beyond the crest of the pass, he drags 
the trembling horse to its haunches and whips down 
from the saddle, the wine of battle singing in his 
veins and red wrath answering for physical fitness. 
A hasty glance to make sure that the broncho’s 
wound is not disabling, and he is back at the summit 
of the pass, sheltering himself behind a rock and 
sending shot after shot across the ravine at his 
assailants. The fusillade is harmless ; wounds, mad 
gallops, and red wrath being easily subversive of 
accuracy in target practice ; but it has the effect of 
sending the enemy to the rear in discreet haste, 
with the dropping shots beating quick time for the 
double quartette of trampling hoofs as the twain 
gallop out of range behind the bald headland. 


222 


THE HELPERS 


For a resolute half-hour, while the undertow of 
the ebbing minutes steadily undermines the props and 
shores set up by Berserk wrath, the solitary rifleman 
lies watchful and vigilant. Thrice in that interval 
have the attackers rallied ; once in a desperate 
charge to gain the cover of the timber on the can- 
yon’s brink, and twice in equally desperate efforts 
to turn the rifleman’s position by following the 
looping of the trail. Notwithstanding the bad 
marksmanship of the garrison the position has 
proved — still proves — impregnable ; and the end 
of the half-hour leaguer finds the intrenched one 
secure in his position, with the enemy in permanent 
check, and only his own waning strength to warn 
him that the pass cannot be held indefinitely. 

But this warning is imperative, as is that other 
of the fast westering sun ; and when a movement on 
the opposite height gives him one more chance to 
announce volley-wise that the pass is still manned, 
he retreats swiftly, remounts after more than one 
exhaustive effort, and canters down the farther wind- 
ings of the trail into a valley shut in on all sides by 
snow-coifed sentinel mountains, and with a brawling 
stream plunging through its midst ; into this valley 
and down the length of it to a narrowing of the 
stream path, where a rude cabin, with its door 
hanging awry, looks across from the heel of the 
western cliff to the gray dump of a tunnel-opening 
in the opposite mountain side. 

The sun has already set for the lower slopes of 
the shut-in valley, and the frosty breath of the snow- 


THE HELPERS 


223 


capped sentinel peaks is in the air. At the door of 
the cabin the winner in the desperate race slides 
from the saddle. His knees are quaking, and be- 
cause of them he stumbles and falls over the log 
doorstone, cursing his helplessness in the jolt of it. 
But there remains much to be done, and the sunset 
glories are changing from crimson and dusky gold 
on the snow-caps to royal purple in the shadow of 
the western cliff. 

With many slippings and stumblings he crosses 
the foot-log and climbs to the level of the tunnel- 
opening opposite, constraining the unwilling horse to 
foUow. With a stone for a hammer he tacks a 
square of paper on one of the struts of the timbered 
entrance ; and after another struggle feebly fierce 
the horse is dragged into the low-browed cavern and 
tethered out of harm’s way. By the leaden-footed 
step of the man one would say that the last re- 
serves of determination have been called in and are 
far spent; but he will not desist. With four stakes 
taken from the heap of wooden treenails used in the 
tunnel timbering he drags himself from corner to 
corner of the claim, pacing its boundaries and mark- 
ing the points of intersection with dogged exactness. 
When the final stake is driven he can no longer 
stand upright, and is fain to win back to the tunnel 
on hands and knees with groans and futile tooth- 
gnashings. 

But the aftermath of the task still waits ; shall 
wait until he has barricaded the tunnel’s mouth with 
an up-piling of timbers, fragments of rock, odds and 


224 


THE HELPERS 


ends movable, with a counterscarp of loose earth to 
make it bullet-proof — the last scraped up with 
bleeding hands from the debris at the head of the 
dump. 

This done, he drags himself over the barricade, 
finds the saddle-bags again, and strikes a light. The 
candle flame is but a yellow puncture in the thick 
gloom of the tunnel, but it serves his purpose, which 
is to scrawl a few words on a blank page of an 
engineer’s note-book, — sole reminder of the thrifty 
forecast of saner days beyond the descent into the 
nether depths. An imprecation bubbles up to 
punctuate the signature ; a pointless cursing, which 
is no more than a verbal mask for a groan extorted 
by the agony of the effort to guide the pencil point. 
The malison strings itself out into broken sentences 
of justification ; mere ravings, as pointless as the 
curse. “ Finders are keepers, — that ’s the law of 
the strong. ‘ He that hath clean hands shall be 
stronger and stronger.’ I found it and gave it 
back, and he drowned it in a bottle. . . . Now 
it is mine ; and to-morrow I ’ll be dead. But she ’ll 
know that I haven’t — that I haven’t — quite — 
forgotten.” 

To pain-blurred eyes the candle flame has faded 
to a nebulous point in the darkness, but still the 
light suffices. He has neither envelope nor sealing- 
wax, but he makes shift to seal the book with a 
wrapping of twine and a bit of pitch scraped from 
the nearest strut in the timbering. After which he 
seeks and finds the crevice in which Garvin kept his 


THE HELPERS 


225 


explosives ; and when the note-book is safely hidden, 
drops exhausted behind the breastwork, with the 
rifle at his shoulder, beginning his vigil what time 
the first silvery flight of moon-arrows is pouring 
upon cliff-face and cabin opposite. 


I 


CHAPTER XXI 


It is a fact no less deprecable than true that 
events in orderly sequence do not always lend them- 
selves to the purposes of a chronicler who would be 
glad to prick in his climaxes with a pen borrowed 
of the dramatist. With some little labor, and the 
help of not a few coincidences which may fairly be 
called fortuitous, the march of events in the life of 
Henry Jeffard has led up to a point at which the 
fictional unities pause, confidently anticipative of a 
climax which shall reecho the heroic struggle of the 
Spartan few at Thermopylae, or the daring-do of 
the Pontine Horatius. But the facts are inexorable 
and altogether disappointing. With prologue and 
stage-setting for a Sophoclean tragedy, the piece 
halts ; hangs in the wind at the critical conjuncture 
like a misstaying ship ; becomes, in point of fact, a 
mere modern comedy-drama with a touch of travesty 
in it ; and the unities, fictional and dramatic, shriek 
and expire. 

This humiliating failure of the dramatic possibili- 
ties turns upon an inconsequent pivot-pin in the 
human mechanism, namely, the lack of courage in 
the last resort in men of low degree. To kidnap a 
drunken man or to pistol an unarmed one is one 
thing ; to force a sky-pitched Gibraltar defended by 


THE HELPERS 


227 


a resolute fellow-being with a modern high-power 
repeating rifle and an itching trigger-finger is quite 
another. This was the conservative point of view 
of the aliased ones ; and after the final futile at- 
tempt to gain the trail and the cover of the timber, 
the twain held a council of war, vilified their luck, 
and sounded a retreat. 

Thus it came about that Denby and his man, 
riding tantivy to the rescue, met the raiders two 
miles down the trail Aspenward; and having this 
eye-assurance that the foray had failed, the promoter 
was minded to go back to town to await Jeffard’s 
return. But, having the eye-assurance, he was not 
unwilling to add another. Bartrow’s telegram had 
named the figure of the assay ; the incredible num- 
ber of dollars and cents to the ton to be sweated out 
of the bonanza drift. Now assays are assays, but 
investment is shy of them, demanding mill - runs, 
and conservative estimates *based on averages ; and 
pondering these things the rescuer reverted to his 
normal character of capitalist in ordinary to money- 
less bonanzists, and determined to go on and see for 
himseK. Accordingly, Jeffard’s unexpected rein- 
forcements pressed forward while the enemy was in 
full tide of retreat ; and a short half-hour later the 
squadron of retrieval came near to paying the pen- 
alty of an unheralded approach, since it was upon 
the promoter and his henchman that Jeffard poured 
his final volley. 

So much for the tragi-comedy of the sky-pitched 
Gibraltar, which made a travesty of Jeffard’s heart- 


228 


THE HELPERS 


breaking efforts to fortify himself in the old tunnel. 
And as for the apparent determination to die open- 
eyed and militant behind the barricade, the un- 
romantic truth again steps in to give the coup de 
grace to the disappointed unities. There is a limit 
to human endurance, and the hardiest soldier may 
find it on a field as yet no more than half won. 
Fastings and fierce hurryings, wounds, physical and 
spiritual, and ruthless determination may ride rough- 
shod over Nature’s turnpike ; but Nature will de- 
mand her toll. For this cause Jeffard saw no more 
than the first flight of moon-arrows glancing from 
the face of the western cliff. Long before the 
Selenean archers were fairly warmed to their work 
he had fallen asleep, with his cheek on the carved 
grip of the borrowed rifle ; a lost man to all intents 
and purposes, if the fictional unities had not been 
put to flight by the commonplace fact. 

Behold him, then, awakening what time the vol- 
leying sim has changed places with the moon- 
archers. The barricaded tunnel has a dim twilight 
of its own, but out and abroad the day is come, and 
the keen air is tinnient with the fine treble of the 
mountain morning. The slanting sun-fire spatters 
the gray cliff opposite, and a spiral of blue smoke is 
curling peacefully above the chimney of the cabin. 
And in the shallows of the stream a man, who is 
neither desperado black or red, is bathing the legs 
of a horse. Under such conditions one may imagine 
a recreant sentry rubbing his eyes to make sure, and 
presently climbing the barricade to slide down the 
dump into parley range, question-charged. 


THE HELPERS 


229 


Denby unbent, smiling. “ Did n’t I say that you 
were an inconsiderate madman ? You had to sleep 
or die.” 

“ But when did you get here ? ” 

“About the time the proxies would have arrived, 
if you had n’t succeeded in discouraging them. It 
was late ; much later than it would have been if you 
had n’t given us such an emphatic stand-ofp at the 
summit. Come across and have some breakfast 
with us.” 

Jeffard found the foot-log and made shift to walk 
it. 

“Did I fire at you? I thought it was another 
charge coming. They had been trying to rush me.” 

“So I inferred. We camped down out of range 
and gave you plenty of time. You may be no 
marksman, but ” — He finished the sentence in 
dumb show by taking off his hat and pointing to a 
bullet score in the crown of it. “ A few inches 
lower and you would have spoiled your first chance 
of capitalizing the Midas. How do you feel this 
morning ? ” 

“A bit unresponsive, but better than I have a 
right to expect. What became of the two raiders ? ” 

“We met them riding a steeplechase toward 
town. You discouraged them, as I said. From 
Donald’s count of the bullet-splashes on that bald 
summit you must have gotten in your work pretty 
lively.” 

Jeffard lowered the hammer of the rifle and 
emptied the magazine. “ It ’s a good weapon,” he 


230 


THE HELPERS 


said. “I believe I could leam to shoot with it, 
after a while. Will you sell it? ” 

“ Not to any one. But I ’U make you a present 
of it. Let ’s go in and see what Donald has found 
in his saddle-bags. It ’s a fine breakfast morning.” 

So they went into the cabin and sat at meat on 
either side of a rough table of Garvin’s contriving, 
and were served by a solemn-faced Scot, whose skill 
as a camp cook was commensurate with his ability 
to hold his tongue. Notwithstanding the presumable 
urgencies the breakfast talk was not of business. 
Jefiard would have had it so, but Denby forbade. 

“ Not yet,”, he objected. “ Not until you have 
caught up with yourself. After breakfast Donald 
will sling you a blanket hammock under the trees, 
and you shall sleep the clock around. Then you ’ll 
feel fit, and we can talk futures if you please.” 

If there were a prompting of suspicion in the 
glance with which Jeffard met this proposal it re- 
mained in abeyance. With every embrasure gunned 
and manned the fortress of this life must always be 
pregnable on the human side; in the last resort 
one must trust something to the chance of loyalty in 
the garrison. Wherefore Jeffard accepted the pro- 
moter’s pipe and the blanket hammock, and fell 
asleep while Donald was pulling down the barricade 
at the tunnel’s mouth preparatory to liberating the 
neighing horse stabled in the heading. 

It was evening, just such another as that one 
three months agone, in the heart of which two men 
had sat at the cabin door looking a little into each 


THE HELPERS 


231 


other’s past, when Jeffard opened his eyes. The 
three horses, saddled, but with loose cinches, were 
cropping the sun-cured grass on the level which 
served as a dooryard for the cabin ; and an appetiz- 
ing smell of frying bacon was abroad in the air. 
Jelfard sat up yawning, and the promoter rose from 
the doorstep and rapped the ashes from his pipe. 

“ Feel better ? ” he queried. 

“ I feel like a new man. I had n’t realized that 
I was so nearly spent.” 

“ That is why I prescribed the blanket. Another 
day would have finished you.” 

Jeffard slid out of the hammock and went to 
plunge his face and hands in the stream ; after 
which they ate again as men who postpone the lesser 
to the greater ; with Donald the taciturn serving 
them, and hunger waiving speech and ceremony. 

It was yet no more than twilight when the meal 
was finished ; and Denby found a candle and 
matches in the henchman’s saddlebags. 

“ If you are ready, we ’U go up to the tunnel and 
have another look at the lead before we go,” he 
said. “ I have been examining it to-day, and I ’U 
make you a proposition on the ground, if you like.” 

Jeffard pieced out the inference with the recollec- 
tion of the saddled horses. 

“ Do we go back to-night ? ” 

“Yes; if you are good for it. It has been a 
pretty warm day for the season, and we are like to 
have more of them. There is a good bit of snow 
on the trail, and if it softens we shall be shut in. 


232 


THE HELPERS 


That ’s one reason, and another is this : if we make 
a deal and mean to get any machinery in here before 
snow flies and the range is blocked, we ’ve got to be 
about it.” 

Jeffard nodded acquiescence, and they fared forth 
to cross the foot-log and toil up the shelving slope 
of the gray dump. It was a stiff climb for a whole 
man, and at the summit Jeffard sat down with his 
hands to his head and his teeth agrind. 

“ By Jove ! but that sets it in motion again in 
good shape ! ” he groaned. “ Sit down here and 
let ’s talk it out in the open. I don’t care to bur- 
row.” 

Denby pocketed his candle, and they sat together 
on the brink of the dump, with their backs to the 
opening ; and thus it chanced that neither of them 
saw a shadowy figure skulking among the firs beside 
the tunnel’s mouth. When they began to talk the 
figure edged nearer, flitting ghostlike from tree to 
tree, and finally crouching under the penthouse of 
the tunnel timbering. 

The crimson and mauve had faded out of the 
western sky when the two at the dump-head rose, 
and Jeffard said : “ Your alternative is fair enough, 
It ’s accepted, without conditions other than this — 
that you will advance me a few hundred dollars for 
my own purposes some time within thirty days.” 

“ You need n’t make that a condition ; I should 
be glad to tide you over in any event. But I am 
sorry you won’t let me buy in. As I have said, 
there is enough here for both of us.” 


THE HELPERS 


233 


The aftermath of the getting up was a sharp 
agony, and Jeffard had his hands to his head again. 
When he answered it was to say : — 

“ I sha’n’t sell. There are reasons, and you may 
take this for the lack of a better. A while back, 
when a single meal in the day was sometimes beyond 
me, I used to say that if the tide should ever turn 
I’d let the money go on piling up and up until there 
was no possibility of hunger in an eternity of futures. 
You say the tide has turned.” 

“ It has, for a fact ; and I don’t know that I 
blame you. If it were mine I should probably try 
to keep it whole.” 

Jeffard went on as one who follows out his own 
train of thought regardless of answers relevant or 
impertinent. “ I said that, and I don’t know that I 
have changed my mind. But before we strike hands 
on the bargain it may be as well to go back to the 
question which you were good enough to leave in 
abeyance yesterday.” 

“ The question of ethics ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“I am going to take something for granted, if 
you don’t choose to be frank with me.” 

“ It will be safer to take nothing for granted.” 

“ But the claim is yours ? ” 

“ Legally, yes ; there wiU be no litigation.” 

“ But honestly, as man to man.” Denby put his 
hands on the wounded man’s shoulders, and turned 
him about so that the fading light in the west fell 
upon his face. “ My dear fellow, I ’ve known you 


234 


THE HELPERS 


but a day, but your faoe is n’t the face of a scoun- 
drel. I can’t believe that the man who made the 
magnificent fight that you did would make it to 
overreach his partner.” 

Jefiard turned aside, with a backward step that 
freed him from the friendly hands. Twice he tried 
to speak, and at the third attempt the words came 
but haltingly. 

“ It will be better in the end — better for all con- 
cerned — if you — if you do believe it. Believe it, 
and cause it to be believed, if you choose. I have 
counted the cost, and am ready to take the conse- 
quences.” 

Denby thrust his hands into his pockets and be- 
gan to tramp, three paces and a turn, across and 
across the narrow embankment. A little light was 
beginning to sift in between the man and his mys- 
tery, but it was not of the sun. 

“ Mr. Jeffard, I ’d like to ask a question. You 
need n’t answer it if you don’t want to. Do you 
know who drove this tunnel ? ” 

“ I do.” 

“ W as it the man who raced you from Leadville 
to Aspen, and who shot you when you tried to bluff 
him by making him believe that you had already 
located the claim in your own name ? ” 

“ It was.” 

“ Then, to put it plainly, you are the aggressor, 
after all. You have really jumped your partner’s 
claim.” 

The promoter stopped and faced his man, and the 


THE HELPERS 


235 


skulker at the tunnel’s mouth crept nearer, as a 
listener who may not miss a word. 

“ That is what men will say, I suppose ; and I 
shall not contradict them. He has forfeited his 
right.” Jeffard said it with eyes downcast, but 
there was no incertitude in the words. 

“Forfeited his right? How? By shooting at 
you in a very natural fit of frenzied rage ? I can’t 
believe that you realize the enormity of this thing, 
Mr. Jeffard. You are new to the West. It is true 
that the law can’t touch you, but public opinion, the 
sentiment of a mining region, wiU brand you as the 
basest of thieves.” 

“ That is the public’s privilege. I shall not 
attempt to defend myself — to you, or to any one. 
The consequences are mine to suffer or to ignore.” 

“ You can’t ignore them. Your best friends wiU 
turn upon you, and mining-camp justice will not 
only acquit the man who tried to kill you — it will 
fight for him and condemn you.” 

“ But yesterday you said it would have given me 
the benefit of the doubt and lynched him. I can 
fight my own battle.” 

“ Yes, I did say so ; and, lacking your own evi- 
dence against yourself, it will condemn him yet. 
Had you thought of that ? ” 

“ Mr. Denby, I have answered your questions be- 
cause you had a right to ask them. To the public I 
shall neither deny nor affirm.” 

“ Then you ’ll have the choice of posing as a 
scoundrel on the one band, or of consenting to the 


236 


THE HELPERS 


death or imprisonment of a measurably innocent 
man on the other. I don’t envy you.” 

“ It is my own affair, as you were good enough to 
say yesterday. Do you wish to withdraw your pro- 
posal?” 

Denhy took time to think about it, pacing out his 
decision what time the moon was beginning to silver 
the western snow-caps. 

“ No ; as I have made it and you have accepted it, 
the proposal is merely a matter of service to be ren- 
dered and paid for ; I furnish the capital to work 
the mine for a year for a certain portion of the out- 
put. But if you had taken me up on the original 
proposition, I should beg to be excused. Under the 
circumstances, I should n’t care to be a joint owner 
with you.” 

“You couldn’t be,” said Jeffard briefly; “you, 
nor any one else.” 

“ WeU, we are agreed as to that. Shall we go 
now? Donald is waiting, and the moon wiU be up 
by the time we strike the trail.” 

“ One moment ; I have left something in the 
tunnel.” 

Jeffard turned back toward the timbered archway, 
and the promoter went with him. In the act a 
shadowy figure darted into the mouth of gloom and 
was seen by Denby. 

“ What was that ? ” 

“ I did n’t see anything.” 

Denby stumbled over the remains of the barricade. 
“ That must have been what I saw,” he said. “ But 


THE HELPERS 237 

at the moment I could have sworn it was a man 
dodging into the tunnel.” 

A few feet from the entrance Jeffard felt along 
the waU for the crevice, found it, and presently 
thrust the note-book into Denby’s hands. 

“ You may remember that I told you I should 
leave my will here against a contingency which 
seemed altogether probable. In view of what has 
since passed between us, I sha’n’t hold you to your 
promise to act as my executor ; but if anything 
happens to me I shall be glad if you will send that 
book under seal to Dick Bar trow. You wiU do that 
much for me, won’t you ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ That is all ; now I am at your service.” 

A few minutes later the cabin and the bit of 
dry sward in front of it were deserted, and the whis- 
pering firs had swallowed up the last faint echoes of 
minishing: hoof-beats. Not until the silence was un- 
broken did the shadowy figure venture out of its 
hiding in the tunnel to stumble blindly down the 
dump, across the foot-log, and so to the cabin door. 
Here it went down on hands and knees to quarter 
the ground like a hungry animal in search of food. 
Unhappily, the simile is no simile. It was James 
Garvin, who, for the better part of two days, had 
not tasted food. And when finally the patient 
search was rewarded by the retrieval of a few scraps 
of bacon and pan-bread, the broken meats of Don- 
ald’s supper-table, the starving fugitive fell upon 
them with a beastlike growl of triumph. But in the 


238 


THE HELPERS 


midst of the scanty feast he dropped the bread and 
meat to cover his face with his hands, rocking back 
and forth in his misery and sobbing like a child. 

“ Oh, my Gawd ! — ef I had n’t hearn it out’n 
his own mouth . . . and me a-lovin’ him thess like 
he ’d been blood-kin to me ! Oh, my Gawd! ” 


CHAPTER XXII 


It was rather late in the autumn, too late to admit 
of a rush of prospectors to the shut-in valley, when 
the fame of the new gold-bearing district in the Elk 
Mountains began to be noised about. As bonanza 
fame is like to be, the earlier bruitings of it were as 
nebulous as the later and more detailed accounts 
were fabulous. Some garbled story of the fight for 
possession found its way into the newspapers ; and 
since this had its starting-point in the resentment 
of the Aspen newsgatherer who had been so curtly 
sent to the right-about by Jeffard, it became the 
basis of an accusation, which was scathing and fear- 
less, or covert and retractable, in just proportion to 
the obsequiousness of the journalistic accusers. 

In its most favorable rendering this story was an 
ugly one ; but here again chance, in the form of 
reportorial inaccuracy, was kind to Jeffard. From 
his boyhood people had been stumbling over his 
name; and with ample facilities for verifying the 
spelling of it the reporters began, continued, and 
ended by making it “Jeffers,” “ Jeffreys,” and in one 
instance even “Jefferson.” Hence, with Bartrow 
as the single exception, no one who knew Jeffard 
identified him with the man who had figured as the 
putative villain-hero in the fight for possession. 


240 


THE HELPERS 


Bartrow read the account of the race, the shooting 
affray, and the subsequent details of the capitalizing 
of the Midas, with Denby as its promoter and Jef- 
fard as sole owner, with judgment suspended. It 
was not in him to condemn any man unheard ; and 
Jeffard had put himself safely out of reach of query- 
ings, friendly or otherwise, by burying himself for 
the winter with the development force which the 
promoter had hurried across the range before the 
snows isolated the shut-in valley. Later, when he 
had to pay the note in the LeadviUe bank, Bartrow 
had a twinge of dismay ; but again invincible fair- 
ness came to the rescue, and he lifted the dishonored 
paper at a time when he could iU afford to, promis- 
ing himself that this, too, should be held in solution ; 
should not even be precipitated in confidence with 
any one. 

This promise he kept until Constance Elliott 
plmnbed the depths of him, as she was prone to do 
when he gave evidence of having anything to con- 
ceal. The occasion was the midwinter ball of the 
First Families of Colorado ; and having more than 
one score to settle with the young miner, who had 
lately been conspicuous only by his absence, Connie 
had arbitrarily revised Bartrow’s programme, — 
which contemplated a monopoly of aU the dances 
Miss Van Vetter would give him. 

“ Well, catalogue ’em — what have I done ? ” 
demanded the unabashed one, when she had marched 
him into that particular alcove of the great hotel 
dining-room which did temporary duty as a conser- 
vatory. 


241 


THE HELPERS 

« Several things.” Stephen Elliott’s daughter was 
in the mood called pertness in disagreeable young 
women. “ Have you quite forgotten that I stand 
in loco parentis to the giddy and irresponsible young 
person whose card you have covered with your scrawly 
autographs ? ” 

The idea was immensely entertaining to the young 
miner, who laughed so heartily that a sentimental 
couple billing and cooing behind the fan-palms took 
wing immediately. “ You ? you chaperoning Myr — 
Miss Van Vetter? That ’s a good one ! ” 

“ It ’s a bad one, where you are concerned. What 
do you mean by such an inconsistent breach of the 
proprieties ? ” 

“ Inconsistent ? I’m afraid I don’t quite catch 
on.” 

“ Yes, inconsistent. You bury yourself for 
months on end in that powder-smelly old tunnel of 
yours, and about the time we ’ve comfortably for- 
gotten you, you straggle in with a dress-coat on your 
arm and proceed to monopolize one of us. What 
do you take us for ? ” 

It was on the tip of Bartrow’s tongue to retort 
that he would very much like to take Miss Van 
Vetter for better or worse, but he had not the cour- 
age of his convictions. So he kept well in the 
middle of the road, and made the smoke-blackened 
tunnel his excuse for the inconsistency. 

“ It is n’t ‘ months,’ Connie ; or at least it ’s only 
two of them. You know I ’d be glad enough to 
?hase myself into Denver every other day if I could. 


242 


THE HELPERS 


But it is coming down to brass tacks with us in the 
Little Myriad, and I Ve just got to keep my eye on 
tbe gun.’’ 

Whereupon pertness, or the Constance Elliott 
transmutation of it, vanished, and she made him sit 
down. 

“ Tell me all about the Little Myi’iad, Dick. Is 
it going to keep its promise ? ” 

The Little Myriad’s owner sought and found a 
handkerchief, usmg it mopwise. Curious questions 
touching the prospects of his venture on Topeka 
Mountain were beginning to have a perspiratory 
effect upon him. 

“I wish I could know for sure, Connie. Some- 
times I think it will ; and some other times I should 
think it means to go back on me, — if I dared to.” 

“ Is n’t the lead still well-defined ? ” Constance 
dropped into the mining teclmicalities with the easy 
familiarity of one born in the metalliferous West. 

“ It is now ; but two months ago, or thereabouts, 
it pinched out entirely. That is why I hibernated.” 

“ Was the last mill-run encouraging? ” 

“ N-no, I can’t say that it was. The ore — what 
little there is of it — seems to grade rather lower as 
we go in. But it ’s a true fissure, and it must begin 
to go the other way when we get deep enough.” 

For a half-score of fan-sweeps Connie was silent. 
Then : “ Is the purse growing light, Dickie ? Be- 
cause if it is, poppa’s is still comfortably fat.” 

Bartrow laughed in a way to indicate that the 
strain was lessened for the moment. “ I believe 


THE HELPERS 


243 


you and your father would give away the last dollar 
you have in the world. But it has n’t come to a 
fresh loan with me yet.” 

“ When it does, you know where to float it.” 

“ When it does, I sha’n’t rob my best friends. 
If I have to borrow more money for development, 
I ’m afraid the loan will be classed as ‘ extra hazard- 
ous.’ But you said there were several things. 
What else have I done ? ” 

“ The next is something you haven’t done. You 
have n’t written a line to Mr. Lansdale in all these 
weeks, — not even to thank him for taking your 
foolish telegram about the Margaret Gannon crisis 
seriously. And he tells me he has written you 
twice.” 

“ I ’m a miserable sinner, and letter writing is n’t 
in me. Is Lansdale here? I’ll go and square 
myself in the most abject formula you can suggest.” 

“ He is n’t here. He is out at Bennett on a ranch.” 

“ On a ranch in midwinter ? Who on top of 
earth told him to do that ? ” 

“ One of the doctors. I wanted to dissuade him, 
but I had n’t the heart to try. He is so anxious to 
live.” 

“ Naturally.” Bartrow eyed his companion in a 
way which was meant to be a measure of the things 
he knew and would by no means tell, but Constance 
was opening and shutting her fan with inthought 
paramount, and saw it not. Whereat Bartrow was 
brutal enough to say ; “ Is he going to make a go 
of it?” 


244 


THE HELPERS 


“Oh, I hope so, Dick! It is such a pathetic 
struggle. And he is like all the others who are best 
worth keeping alive : he won’t let any one help him. 
Just fancy him working for his board on a dreary 
prairie ranch I The monotony of it is enough to kill 
him.” 

“ I should say so. Lamb ranch, I suppose ? ” 

•“Yes.” 

“ Then I can imagine the hilarity of it. Up at 
aU sorts of hours and in all weathers feeding and 
watering. That is n’t what he needs. A wagon 
trip in summer, with good company, lots of out- 
doors, and nothing to do but eat and sleep, would 
be more like it. If he puUs through to spring, and 
the Myriad will let up on me for a month or two, I 
don’t know but I shall be tempted to make him try 
it.” 

“ Oh, Dick ! would you ? ” There was a quick 
upflash of wistful emotion in the calm gray eyes. 
Bartrow set it down to a fresh growth in perspica- 
city on his own part that he was able to interpret 
it — or thought he was. But the little upflash went 
out like a taper in the dark with the added after- 
thought. “ It ’s no use, Dick. The Myriad won’t 
let you.” 

“ Perhaps it will ; though I ’m bound to admit 
that it does n’t look that way at present. Now, if 
Jef— ” 

From what has gone before it wiU be understood 
that any mention of Jeffard for good or ill was the 
one thing which Bartrow had promised himself to 


THE HELPERS 


245 


avoid at all hazards; wherefore he broke the name 
in the midst, coughed, dragged out his watch, — in 
short, did what manlike untactfulness may do to 
create a diversion, and at the end of it found the 
unafraid eyes fixed upon him with mandatory orders 
in them. 

“ Go on,” she said calmly. “ If Mr. Jeffard ” — 

“ KeaUy, Connie, I must break it off short ; my 
time’s up. Don’t you hear the orchestra? Miss 
Van Vetter wiU ” — 

But Connie was not to be turned aside by any 
consideration for Bartrow’s engagements or her own ; 
nor yet by the inflow into the alcove-conservatory of 
sundry other fanning couples lately freed from the 
hop-and-slide of the two-step. Nor yet again by the 
appearance of young Mr. Theodore Calmaine, who 
came up behind Bartrow and was straightway trans- 
fixed and driven forth with pantomimic cut and 
thrust. 

“ Myra will have no difficulty in finding a part^ 
ner. Don’t be foolish, Dick. I have known aU 
along that you have learned something about Mr. 
Jeffard which you would n’t tell me. You may 
remember that you have persistently ignored my 
questions in your answers to my letters, — and I paid 
you back by telling you little or nothing about 
Myra. Now what were you going to say ? ” 

“ I was going to say that if Jeffard were like what 
he used to be, he would do for Lansdale what I 
shall probably not be able to do.” 

“ What do you know about Mr. Jeffard? ” 


246 


THE HELPERS 


“ What all the world knows — and a little more. 
Of course you have read what the newspapers had 
to say ? ’’ 

“ I have never seen a mention of his name.” 

“ Why, you must have ; they were full of it a 
month or two ago, and will be again as soon as the 
range opens and we find out what the big bonanza 
has been doing through the winter. You don’t 
mean to say that you did n’t read about the free- 
gold strike in the Elk Mountains, and the locomo- 
tive race, and the shooting scrape in the hotel at 
Aspen, and all that ? ” 

The steady eyes were veiled and Connie’s breath 
came in nervous little gasps. Any man save down- 
right Richard Bartrow would have made a swift 
diversion, were it only to an open window or back 
to the ballroom. But he sat stocklike and silent, 
letting her win through the speechlessness of it to 
the faltered reply. 

“I — I saw it ; yes. But the name of that man 
was' — was not Jeffard.” 

“ No, it was J offers, or anything that came handy 
in the newspaper accoimts. But that was a report- 
er’s mistake.” 

“ Dick,” — the steadfast eyes were transfixing 
him again, — “ are you quite sure of that ? ” 

“ I ought to be. I was the man who helped him 
out at the pinch and got him started on the locomo- 
tive chase.” 

“ You helped him ? — then all those things they 
said about him were true ? ” 


THE HELPERS 


247 


It was Bartrow’s turn to hesitate. “I — I’m 
trying not to believe that, Connie.” 

“ But you know the facts ; or at least, more of 
them than the newspapers told. Did the claim 
really belong to him, or to James Garvin? ” 

Bartrow crossed his legs, uncrossed them, and 
again had recourse to his watch. 

“ I wish you ’d leave the whole business up in the 
air, Connie, the way I ’m trying to. It does n’t 
seem quite fair, somehow, to condemn him behind 
his back.” 

“ But the facts,” she insisted. “ You know them, 
don’t you ? ” 

“ Yes ; and they ’re against him.” Bartrow con- 
fessed it in sheer desperation. “The claim was 
Garvin’s; Jeffard not only admitted it, but he 
started out on the chase with the declared determi- 
nation of standing between Garvin and those two 
blacklegs who were trying to plunder him. That ’s 
all ; that ’s as far as my facts go. Beyond that you 
— and the newspapers — know as much as I do.” 

“Not quite all, Dick. You say you helped him ; 
that means that you lent him money, or borrowed it 
for him. Did he ever pay it back ? ” 

Bartrow got upon his feet at that and glowered 
down upon her with mingled chagrin and awe in 
gaze and answer. 

“ Say, Connie, you come precious near to being 
uncanny at times, don’t you know it? That was 
the one thing I did n’t mean to tell any one. Yes, 
I borrowed for him ; and no, he did n’t pay it back. 


248 


THE HELPERS 


That’s all — all of the all. If you put me in a 
stamp-mill you couldn’t pound out anything else. 
Now, for pity’s sake, let me get back to Miss Van 
Vetter before I fall in with the notion that I ’m too 
transparent to be visible to the naked eye.” 

She rose and took his arm. 

“ You ’re good, Dickie,” she said softly ; “ much 
too good for this world. I ’m sorry for you, because 
it earns you so many buffetings.” 

“ And you think I ’m in for another on Jeffard’s 
account.” 

“ I am sure you are — now. The last time I saw 
him he wore a mask; a horrible mask of willful 
degradation and cynicism and self-loathing; but I 
saw behind it.” 

They were making a slow circuit of the ballroom 
in search of Connie’s cousin, and the throng and the 
music isolated them. 

“ What did you see ? ” 

“ I saw the making of a strong man ; strong for 
good or for evil ; a man who could compel the world- 
attitudes that most of us have to sue for, or who 
would be strong enough on the evil side to flout and 
ignore them. I thought then that he was at the part- 
ing of the ways, but it seems I was mistaken, — that 
the real balancing moment came with what poppa 
calls the ‘high-mountain bribe,’ — Satan’s offer of 
the kingdoms of this world and the glory of them.” 

Now, a thronged ballroom is scarcely a fit place 
for heart-to-heart outreachings ; but there be loyal 
hearts who are not constrained by their encompass- 


THE HELPERS 


249 


ments, and Bartrow was of that brotherhood. They 
had attained a corner where one might swing a 
short-sword without fear of beheading the nearest 
of the dancers or out-sitters, and he faced about and 
took both of Connie’s hands in his. 

“Do you know, little sister, I’m awfully glad 
you ’re able to talk that way about him. There was 
a time when I began to be afraid — for your sake 
first, and afterward for ” — 

It is conceivable that the frankest of young women 
may have some reserves of time and place, if not of 
subjects, and before honest Dick could finish, Con- 
stance had freed herseK and was reproaching young 
Calmaine for not seeking her out for the dance in 
process, — which was his. 

Teddy’s apology had in it the flavor of long ac- 
quaintance and the insolence thereof. “ You ’re a 
cool one,” he said, when they had left Bartrow behind. 
“ As if I did n’t stand for five good minutes at the 
door of that conservatory place, with you eye-pistol- 
ing and daggering me to make me go away ! ” 

Thinking about it afterward, Bartrow wondered 
a little that Connie seemed bent on ignoring him 
through the remainder of the functional hours, large 
and small, but so it was. And when finally he was 
constrained to put Miss Van Vetter in the carriage, 
Connie’s good-night and good-by were of the brief- 
est. Miss Van Vetter, too, was silent on the home- 
ward drive, and this Connie remarked, charging it 
openly to Dick’s account when they were before the 
fire in M3rra’s room contemplating the necessity of 
going to bed. 


250 


THE HELPERS 


“ No, Mr. Bartrow was all that the most exacting 
person could demand, — and more,” said Miss Van 
Vetter, going to the mirror to begin the relaxing 
process. “ It was something he told me.” 

“ About Mr. Jeffard ? ” 

“ Yes ; how did you know ? ” 

“ I did n’t know — I guessed.” 

“ Is n’t it dreadful ! ” 

“No. Some of the other things he did might 
have been that ; but this is unspeakable.” 

Myra turned her back upon the mirror and came 
to stand behind Connie’s chair with her arms about 
her cousin’s neck. 

“ Connie, dear, do you know that one time I was 
almost afraid that you, — but now I am glad, — 
glad that your point of view is — is quite extrinsic, 
you know.” 

Connie’s gaze was upon the fire in the grate, 
fresh-stirred and glowing, a circumstance which may 
have accounted for the sudden trembling of the eye- 
lids and the upweUing of tears in the steadfast eyes. 
And as for the nervous little quaver in her voice, 
there was fatigue to answer for that. 

“I — I’m so glad you all take that for granted,” 
she said. “ I don’t know what I should do if you 
did n’t.” 

And a little later Myra went to bed and to sleep, 
wondering if, after all, there were not secret places 
in the heart of her transparent kinswoman which 
evaded the search-warrant of cousinly disinterest. 


CHAPTEE XXIII 


The obsequious waiter had cleared the table and 
brought in the dessert, and was hovering in the 
middle distance with two cigars in a whiskey glass. 
The persiflant young people at the other end of the 
table rose and went away, leaving a grateful silence 
behind them; and the clerical gentleman at Lans- 
dale’s right folded his napkin in absent-minded 
deference to home habit, and slipped sidewise out of 
his chair as if reluctant to mar the new-born hush. 

Bartrow was down from the mine on the ostensible 
business of restocking the commissariat department 
of the Little Myriad, — a business which, prior to 
Miss Van Vetter’s Denver year, had transacted 
itseK indifferently well by letter, — and Lansdale 
was dining with him at the hotel by hospitable ap- 
pointment. There were months between this and 
their last meeting, an entire winter, in point of fact ; 
but it is one of the compensations of man-to-man 
friendships that they ignore absences and bridge 
intervals smoothly, uncoupling and upcoupling again 
with small jar of accountings for the incidents of 
the lacuna. 

Because of the persiflant young people, the Are of 
query and rejoinder had been the merest shelling 
of the woods on either side ; but with the advent of 


252 


THE HELPERS 


quiet Bartrow said : “ Your winter on the lamb- 
ranch did n’t do you much good, did it ? ” 

“Think not?” Lansdale looked up quickly^ 
with a pathetic plea for heartening in the deep-set 
eyes of him. “ I was hoping you ’d say it had. I 
feel stronger — at times.” 

Bartrow saw the plea and the pathos of it, and 
added one more to the innumerable contemnings of 
his own maladroitness. He was quite sure of his 
postulate, however, — as sure as he was of the un- 
necessary cruelty of setting it in words. Lansdale 
was visibly failing. The clean-shaven face was thin 
to gauntness, and the dark eyes were unnaturally 
bright and wistful. Bartrow bribed the ubiquitous 
waiter to remove himself, making the incident an 
excuse for changing the subject. 

“ Never saw or heard anything more of Jeffard, 
did you ? ” he said, pitching the conversational quoit 
toward a known peg of common interest, and taking 
it for granted that Lansdale, like Connie, had not 
read the proletary’s name into the newspaper mis- 
spellings. 

“ Not a thing. And I have often wondered what 
happened.” 

“ Then Connie has n’t told you ? ” 

“ Miss Elliott ? No ; I did n’t know she knew 
him.” 

“ She met him a time or two ; which is another 
way of saying that she knows him better than we 
do. She ’s a whole assay outfit when it comes to 
sizing people up.” 


V 


THE HELPERS 


253 


“What was her opinion of Jeffard?” Lansdale 
was curious to know if it confirmed his own. 

“ Oh, she thinks he is a grand rascal, of course, — 
as everybody does.” 

“ Naturally,” said Lansdale, having in mind the 
proletary’s later reincarnations as vagrant and starve- 
ling. “ You did n’t see much of him after he got 
fairly into the toboggan and on the steeper grades, 
did you ? ” 

“ Here in Denver ? — no. But what I did see 
was enough to show that he was pretty badly tiger- 
bitten. You told me afterward that he took the 
post-graduate course in his particular specialty.” 

“ He did ; sunk his shaft, as you mining folk 
would say, straight on down to the chaotic substrata ; 
pawned himself piecemeal to feed the animals, and 
went hungry between times by way of contrast.” 

“ Poor devil ! ” said Bartrow, speaking in the 
past tense. 

“Yes, in all conscience; but not so much for 
what he suffered as for what he was.” 

The distinction was a little abstruse for a man 
whose nayword was obviousness, but for the better 
part of a year Bartrow had been borrowing of Miss 
Van Vetter ; among other things some transplantings 
of subtlety. 

“ That ’s where we come apart,” he objected, with 
amiable obstinacy. “ You think the root of the 
thing is in the man, — has been in him all along, 
and only waiting for a chance to sprout. Now I 
don’t. I think it’s in the atmosphere; in the — 
the” — 


254 


THE HELPERS 


“ Environment ? ” suggested Lansdale. 

“ Yes, I guess that ’s the word ; something out- 
side of the man; something that he didn’t make, 
and is n’t altogether to blame for, and can’t always 
control.” 

The man with a moiety of the seer’s gift suffered 
his eyebrows to arch query-wise. “ Does n’t that 
ask for a remodeling of the accepted theory of good 
and evil ? ” 

“ No, you don’t ! ” laughed Bartrow. “ You are 
not going to pull me in over my head, if I know it. 
But I ’ll wrestle with you from now till midnight on 
my own ground. You take the best fellow in the 
world, brought up on good wholesome bread and 
meat and the hke, and stop his rations for awhile. 
Then, when he is hungry enough, you give him a 
rag to chew, and he ’ll proceed to chew it, — not 
necessarily because he likes the taste of the rag, or 
because he was born with the rag-chewing appetite, 
but simply for the reason that you have put it in 
his mouth, and, being hungry, he ’s got to chew 
something. Jeffard is a case in point.” 

“ Let us leave J effard and the personal point 
of view out of the question and stand it upon its 
own feet,” rejoined Lansdale, warming to the fray. 
“Doubtless Jeffard’s problem is divisible by the 
common human factor, whatever that may be, but 
your theory makes it too easy for the evil-doer. 
Consequently I can’t admit it, — not even in Jeffard’s 
case.” 

“ I could make you admit it,” retorted Bartrow, 


-.Hf. / 


THE HELPERS 


255 


■with generous warmth, forgetting the dishonored 
note in the Leadville bank, and remembering only 
the year agone partnership in brother-keeping. 
“ You can size people up ten times to my once, — 
you ought to ; it ’s right in your line, — but I know 
Jeffard worlds better than you do, and I could tell 
you things about him that would make you weep. 
Since he did those things I Ve had a rattling good 
chance to change my mind about him, but I ’m not 
going to do it till I have to. I ’m going to keep on 
believing that away down deep under this devil’ s- 
drif t of — what was it you called it ? — environment, 
there ’s a streak of good clean ore. It may take the 
stamp-mill or the smelter to get it out, but it ’s there 
all the same. He may fall down on you and me 
and all of his friends at any one of a dozen pinches, 
— he has fallen down on me, and pretty middling 
hard, too, — but there will come a pinch sometime 
that will pull him up short, and then you’ll see 
what is in the lower levels of him, — what was there 
aU the time, waiting for somebody to sink a shaft 
deep enough to tap it.” 

Lansdale took the cigar Bartrow was proffering 
and clipped the end of it, reflectively deliberate. 
He was silent so long that Bartrow said : “ Well ? 
you don’t believe it, eh? ” 

“I wouldn’t say that,” Lansdale rejoined ab- 
stractedly; “anyway, not of Jeffard. Perhaps you 
are right. He has given me the same impression at 
times, but he was always saying or doing something 
immediately afterward to obliterate it. But I was 


256 


THE HELPERS 


wondering why you prophesy so confidently about a 
man who, for aught we know, took himself out of 
the world the better part of a year ago.” 

“Suicided? — not much! He’s alive all right; 
very much alive and very much on top, as far as 
money is concerned. You don’t read the papers, I 
take it ? ” 

Lansdale’s smile was of weariness. “Being at 
present a reporter on one of them I read them as 
little as may be. What should I have read that I 
did n’t?” 

“ To begin back a piece, you should have read last 
fall about the big free-gold strike in the Elk Moun- 
tains, and an exciting little scrap between two men 
to get the first location on it.” 

“ I remember that.” 

“ W eU, one of the men — the successful one — 
was Jeff ard ; our Jeffard. Your newspaper accom- 
plices did n’t spell his name right, — won’t spell it 
right yet, — but it ’s Henry Jeffard, and yesterday’s 
‘ Coloradoan ’ says he ’s on his way to Denver to 
play leading man in the bonanza show.” 

Lansdale went silent what time it took to splice 
out the past with the present. After which he said : 
“ I understand now why Miss Elliott condemns him, 
but not quite clearly why you defend him. As I 
remember it, the man who got possession of the 
Midas posed as a highwa3rman of the sort that the 
law can’t punish. What has he to say for him- 
self?” 

Bartrow shook his head. “I don’t know. I 


THE HELPERS 


257 


have n’t seen him since one day last fall ; the day of 
the locomotive chase.” 

“ Did you know then that he was going to steal 
his partner’s mine ? ” 

“No. I thought then that he was going to do 
the other thing. And I ’ll not believe yet that he 
has n’t done the other thing. It ’s the finish I ’m 
betting on. He may have flown the track at all the 
turns, — at this last turn as well as the others, — 
but when it comes to the home stretch, you watch 
him put his shoulder into the collar and remember 
what I said. I hope we ’ll both be there to see.” 

“ So be it,” Lansdale acquiesced. “ It is n’t in 
me to smash any man’s ideal. And if anything 
could make me have faith in my kind, I think your 
belief in the inherent virtue of the race would work 
the miracle.” 

Bartrow laughed again, and pushed back his 
chair. 

“ It does you a whole lot of good to play at being 
a cold-blooded man-hater, does n’t it ? But it ’s no 
go. Your practice does n’t gee with your preaching. 
Let ’s go out on the porch and smoke, if it won’t be 
too cool for you.” 

They left the dining-room together and strolled out 
through the crowded lobby, lightiug their cigars at the 
news-stand in passing. There was a convention of 
some sort in progress, and a sprinkling of the dele- 
gates, with red silk badges displayed, was scattered 
among the chairs on the veranda. Bartrow found 
two chairs a little apart from the decorated ones, 


258 


THE HELPERS 


faced them, and tilted his own against the railing. 
When his cigar was well alight he bethought him of 
a neglected duty. 

“ By the way, old man, I Ve never had the grace 
to say ‘ much obliged ’ for your neatness and dispatch 
in carrying out my wire order. I suppose you ’ve 
forgotten it months ago, but I have n’t. It was 
good of you. Connie wrote me about it at the time, 
and she said a whole lot of pretty things about the 
way you climbed into the breach.” 

“ Did she ? ” Lansdale’s habitual reserve fell away 
from him like a cast garment, and if Bartrow had 
been less oblivious to face readings he might have 
seen that which would have made his heart ache. 
But he saw nothing and went on, following his own 
lead. 

“ Yes ; she said you took hold like a good fellow, 
and hung on like a dog to a root, — that is, she 
did n’t say that, of course, but that was the sense of 
it. I ’m obliged, a whole lot.” 

‘‘ You need n’t be. The obligation is on my side. 
It was a pleasure to try to help Miss Elliott, even if 
I wasn’t able to accomplish anything worth men- 
tioning.” 

“Yes. She’s good people; there’s no discount 
on that. But say, you didn’t size up Pete Grim 
any better than you had to. A good stiff bluff is 
about the only thing he can appreciate.” 

“ If you had heard me talk to him you would have 
admitted that I was trying to bluff him the best I 
knew how,” said Lansdale. 


THE HELPERS 


259 


Bartrow laughed unfeelingly. ‘‘ Tried to scare 
him with a lawsuit, did n’t you ? W^hat do you sup- 
pose a man like Grim cares for the law ? Why, bless 
your innocent soul, he can buy all the law he needs 
six days in the week and get it gratis on the seventh. 
But you might have fetched him down with a gun.” 

Lansdale tried to imagine himself attempting such 
a thing and failed. “ I ’m afraid I could n’t have 
done that — successfully. It asks for a little prac- 
tice, does n’t it ? and from what I have learned of 
Mr. Peter Grim in my smaU dealings with him, I 
fancy he would n’t make a very tractable lay-figure 
for a beginner to experiment on. But we worried 
the thing through after a fashion, and recovered the 
young woman’s sewing-machine finally.” 

“ Bought Grim off, did n’t you ? ” 

“ That was what it amounted to. Miss Elliott’s 
father came to the rescue.” 

“ There ’s a man for you ! ” declared Bartrow. 
“ Built from the ground up, and white aU the way 
through. And Connie ’s just like him. She ’s first 
cousin to the angels when she is n’t making game of 
you. But I suppose you don’t need to have any- 
body sing her praises to you at this late day.” 

“ No ; that is why I say the obligation is on my 
side. I am indebted to your ‘ wire order ’ for more 
things than I could weU catalogue.” 

Bartrow rocked gently on the hinder legs of his 
chair, assuring himself that one of the things needed 
not to be listed. After which he became diplomati- 
cally abstruse on his own account. Two of the 


260 


THE HELPERS 


decorated ones came by, promenading arm in arm, 
and he waited until they were out of hearing. 

“ Found them good people to know, did n’t you ? 
Bueno 1 You used to hibernate a heap too much.” 
Then, with labored indifference : “ What do you 

think of Miss Van Vetter ? ” 

Lansdale laughed. 

“ Whatever you would like to have me think, my 
dear boy. Shall I say that she is the quintessence 
of all the virtuous graces and the graceful virtues ? 
— a paragon of para — ” 

“ Oh, come off ! ” growled the abstruse one. 
“ You ’ve been taking lessons of Connie. You know 
what I mean. Do I — that is — er — do you think 
I stand a ghost of a show there? Honest, now.” 

“ My dear Richard, if I could look into the heart 
of a young woman and read what is therein written, 
I could pass poverty in the street with a nod con- 
temptuous. I ’d be a made man.” 

“ Oh, you be hanged, wiQ you ? You ’re a wild 
ass of the lamb-ranches, and wisdom has shook you,” 
Bartrow rejoined, relapsing into vituperation, “ Why 
can’t you quit braying for a minute or so and be 
serious ? It ’s a serious world, for the bigger part.” 

“Do you find it so? with a Miss Van Vetter for 
an eye-piece to your telescope ? I am astonished.” 

Bartrow pulled his hat over his eyes and enveloped 
himself in a cloud of smoke. “ When you ’re ready 
to fold up your ears and be human people again, just 
let me knoy^, wiU you ? ” This from the midst of 
the smoke-cloud. 


THE HELPERS 


261 


“ Don’t sulk, my Achilles ; you shall have your 
Briseis, — if you can get her,” laughed Lansdale. 
“Miss Van Vetter hasn’t made a confidant of me, 
but I ’ll tell you a lot of encouraging little fibs, if 
that will help you.” 

Bartrow fanned an opening in the tobacco-nimbus. 
“ What do you think about it ? ” 

“ I think I should find out for myself, if I were 
you,” said Lansdale, with becoming gravity. 

“ I don’t believe you would.” 

“ Why?” 

“Miss Van Vetter is rich.” 

“And Mr. Richard Bartrow is only potentially 
so. That is a most excellent reason, but I should n’t 
let it overweigh common sense. From what Miss 
Elliott has said I infer that her cousin’s fortune is 
not large enough to overawe the owner of a promis- 
ing mine.” 

Bartrow’s chair righted itself with a crash. 

“That’s the devil of it, Lansdale; that’s just 
what scares me out. I ’ve been pecking away in the 
Myriad for a year and a half now, and we’re in 
something over four hundred feet — in rock, not 
ore. If we don’t strike pay in the immediate hence 
I ’m a ruined community. I ’ve borrowed right and 
left, and piled up debt enough to keep me in a cold 
sweat for the next ten years. That ’s the chiUy 
fact, and I leave it to you if I had n’t better take 
the night train and skip out for Topeka Mountain 
without going near Steve EUiott’s.” 

The red-badges were passing again, and Lansdale 


262 


THE HELPERS 


took time to consider it. The appeal threw a new 
side-light on the character of the young miner, and 
Lansdale made mental apologies for having mis- 
judged him. When he repKed it was out of the 
heart of sincerity. 

“ It ’s a hard thing to say, but if you have stated 
the case impartially, I don’t know but you would 
better do just that, Dick. From what I have seen 
of Miss Van Vetter, I should hazard a guess that 
the success or failure of the Little Myriad would n’t 
move her a hair’s-breadth, but that is n’t what you 
have to consider.” 

“ No.” Bartrow said it from the teeth outward, 
looking at his watch. “ It ’s tough, but I guess 
you ’re right. I can just about make it if I get a 
quick move. Will you go down to the train with 
me?” 

Lansdale assented, and they walked the few 
squares to the Union Depot in silence. The narrow- 
gauge train was coupled and ready to leave, and 
Bartrow tossed his handbag to the porter of the 
sleeping-car. 

“ You ’re a cold-blooded beggar, do you know 
it ? ” he said, turning upon Lansdale with as near 
an approach to petulance as his invincible good- 
nature would sanction. “Here I’ve lost a whole 
day and ridden a hundred and fifty miles just to get 
a sight of her, and now you won’t let me have it.” 

Lansdale laughed and promptly evaded the re- 
sponsibility. “Don’t lay it on my shoulders; I 
have sins enough of my own to answer for. It ’s a 


THE HELPERS 


263 


little hard, as you say, but it is your own sugges- 
tion.” 

“ Is it ? I don’t know about that. It has been 
with me for a good while, but it never knocked me 
quite out until I began to wonder what you ’d do in 
my place. That settled it. And you ’re not out of 
it by a large majority. What are you going to tell 
them up at Elliott’s ? — about me, I mean.” 

“ Why should I tell them anything? ” 

“ Because you can’t help yourself. Elliott knows 
I ’m in town, — knows we were going to eat together. 
I met him on the way up to dinner.” 

“ Oh, I ’ll tell them anything you say.” 

“ Thanks. Fix it up to suit yourself, — wired to 
come back on first train, or something of that sort. 
Anything ’ll do ; anything but the truth.” 

Lansdale’s smile was inscrutable. He was think- 
ing how impossible it would be for the most accom- 
phshed dissembler to teU aught but the truth with 
Constance Elliott’s calm gray eyes upon him. 

“ I am afraid I shall make a mess of it.” 

“ If you do, I ’ll come back and murder you. It ’s 
bad enough as it is. I ’ve got a few days to go on, 
and I don’t want them to know that the jig is 
definitely up until it can’t be helped.” 

“ Then you ’d better write a note and do your 
own lying,” said Lansdale. “I can spin fetching 
little fictions on paper and sign my name to them, 
but I ’m no good at the other kind.” 

The engine-bell clanged, putting the alternative 
out of the question. 


264 


THE HELPERS 


“That lets me out,” Bartrow said. “You go 
up there and square it right for me ; savez ? And 
say, Lansdale, old man; don’t work yourself too 
hard. In spite of the lamb-ranch, you look thinner 
than usual, and that’s needless. ^Good-by.” 

Bartrow wrung his friend’s hand from the steps 
of the PuUman, and Lansdale laughed quite cheer- 
fully. 

“ Don’t you waste any sympathy on me,” he said. 
“ I ’m going to disappoint you all* and get well. 
Good-night ; and success to the Little Myriad.” 


CHAPTER XXIV 


Lansdale stood watching the two red eyes on 
the rear platform of the sleeping-car until the curve 
on the farther side of the viaduct blotted them out ; 
after which he fell in with the tide of humanity 
ebbing cityward through the great arch of the sta- 
tion, and set out to do Bartrow’s errand at the 
house in CoKax Avenue. 

On the way he found time to admire Bartrow’s 
manliness. The little deed of self-effacement pro- 
mised a much keener sense of the eternal fitness of 
things than he had expected to come upon, in the 
young miner, or in any son of the untempered wil- 
derness. Not that the wilderness was more mer- 
cenary than the less strenuous world of an older 
civilization — rather the contrary; but if it gave 
generously it was also prone to take freely. Lans- 
dale wrought out the antithesis as a small concession 
to his own point of view, and was glad to set Bar- ^ 
trow’s self-abnegation over against it. Assuredly 
he would do what a friendly man might toward 
making good the excuses of the magnanimous one. 

It was Miss Van Vetter who met him at the door, 
and he thought he surprised a shadow of disappoint- 
ment in her eyes when she welcomed him. But it 


266 


THE HELPERS 


was Constance who said, “ Come in, Mr. Lansdale. 
Where is Dick?” 

She was holding the portiere aside for him, and 
he made sure of his ingress before replying.. Being 
of two minds whether to deny all previous knowledge 
of such a person as Richard Bartrow, or to commit 
himself recklessly to the hazards of equivocal ex- 
planations, he steered a middle course. 

“ Am I my brother’s keeper ? ” he demanded, 
dropping into the easy-chair which had come to be 
called his by right of frequent occupancy. 

“ Oh, I hope you have n’t murdered him ! ” said 
Connie, with a show of trepidation. “ That ’s a 
terribly suggestive quotation.” 

“ So it is. But are not my hands clean ? ” He 
held them up for inspection. “ How are you both 
this evening ? ” 

Connie eyes danced. “ Mr. Lansdale, do you 
happen to know anything about the habits of the 
ostrich ? ” 

Lansdale acknowledged defeat, extending his 
hands in mock desperation. “ Put the thumbikins 
on if you must,” he said, “but don’t screw them 
down too hard. I couldn’t tell anything but the 
truth if I should try.” 

“ What have you done with Dick ? ” 

“ I have murdered him, as you suggested, and put 
his remains in a trunk and shipped them East.” 

Miss Van Vetter looked horrified, but whether at 
his fiippancy or at the hideous possibility, Lansdale 
could not determine. 


V 


THE HELPERS 


267 


“But, really,” Connie persisted, with a look in 
her eyes which would have exorcised any demon of 
brazenness ; “ you dined with him, you know.” 

“ So I did ; but he had to go back to his mine on 
the night train. I saw him off, and he made me 
promise to come here and — and ” — 

“ Square it ? ” Connie suggested. 

“ That is precisely the word, — his word. And 
you will both bear me witness that I have done it, 
won’t you ? ” 

Miss Van Vetter was cutting the leaves of a 
magazine, and she looked up to say ; “ That is one 
of the explanations which does n’t explain, is n’t it ? ” 

Lansdale coUapsed in the depths of the chair. 
“ ‘ I ’m a poor unfort’net as don’t know nothink,’ ” 
he quoted. “ TeU me what you ’d like to have me 
say and I ’ll say it.” 

“ Why did Mr. Bartrow have to go back so un- 
expectedly ? ” asked Myra. “ He told Uncle Stephen 
he would be in Denver two or three days.” 

Lansdale was not under bonds to keep the truth- 
ful peace at the behest of any eyes save those of 
Constance Elliott ; wherefore he drew upon his 
imagination promptly, and, as it chanced, rather un- 
fortunately. 

“ He had a telegram from his foreman about a — 
a strike, I think he called it.” 

“ A strike in the Little Myriad ! ” This from 
both of the young women in chorus. Then Connie 
thankfully : “ Oh, I ’m so glad ! ” and Myra vin- 
dictively : “ I hope he ’ll never give in to them! ” 


268 


THE HELPERS 


Lansdale collapsed again. “ What have I done ! ” 
he exclaimed. 

Constance set her cousin right, or tried to. 

“ It is n’t a strike of the men ; it ’s pay-ore — 
is n’t it, Mr. Lansdale? ” 

“Now how should I know?” protested the ama- 
teur apologist. “ A strike is a strike, isn’t it? But 
I don’t believe it was the good kind. He was n’t at 
all enthusiastic about it.” 

“ That will do,” said Connie. “ Poor Dick ! ” 
And Miss Van Vetter, who was not of the stony- 
hearted, rose and went to the piano that she might 
not advertise her emotion. 

Lansdale picked himself up out of the ruins of his 
attempt to do Bartrow a good turn, and hoped the 
worst was over. It was for the time ; but later in 
the evening, when Myra had gone to the library for 
a book they had been talking about, Connie re- 
turned to the unfinished inquisition. 

“You know more than you have told us about 
Dick’s trouble,” she said gravely. “ Is it very 
serious ? ” 

“ Yes, rather.” Lansdale made a sudden resolve 
to cleave to the facts in the case, telling as few of 
them as he might. 

“ It was n’t a strike at all, was it ? ” 

“ No ; that was a little figure of speech. It is 
rather the lack of a strike — of the kind you meant.” 

“Poor boy! I don’t wonder that it made him 
want to run away. He has worked so hard and so 
long, and his faith in the Little Myriad has been 
unbounded. What will he do ? ” 


THE HELPERS 


269 


“I don’t know tkat. In fact, I think he is not 
quite at the brink of things yet. But he is afraid 
it is coming to that.” 

“ How did he talk ? Is he very much discour- 
aged ? But of course he is n’t ; nothing discourages 
him.” 

Lansdale was looking into the compelling eyes 
and he forgot his role, — forgot that he had been 
giving Constance to understand that the prospective 
failure of the mine was the only cloud in Bartrow’s 
sky. 

“ I 'm sorry I can’t confirm that.” He spoke 
hurriedly, hearing the rustle of Miss Van Vetter’s 
skirts in the haU. “ He decided rather suddenly, — 
to go back, you know. He intended coming here 
with me this evening. I don’t think he had ever 
considered all the possibilities and consequences ; 
and we were talking it over. Then he decided not 
to come. He is the soul of honor.” 

Constance nodded intelligence, and made the 
proper diversion when her cousin came in with 
the book. But Miss Van Vetter had overheard the 
final sentence, and she put it away for future refer- 
ence. 

Lansdale said good-night a little later, and they 
both went to the door with him. When he was 
gone Myra drew Connie into the library and made 
her sit down where the light from the shaded chan- 
delier fell full upon her. 

“ Connie, dear,” she began, fixing her cousin with 
an inquisitorial eye, “ who is ‘ the soul of honor ’ ? ” 


270 


THE HELPERS 


“ It is n’t nice to overhear things,” said Connie 
pertly. 

“I might retort that it isn’t nice to have con- 
fidences with a gentleman the moment your cousin’s 
back is turned, but I sha’n’t. Will you teU me 
what I want to know ? ” 

“We were talking about Dick.” 

Myra’s hands were clasped over her knee, and 
one daintily shod foot was tapping a tattoo on the 
rug. “ W as it anything that I ought not to know ? ” 

Connie’s pertness vanished, and the steadfast gray 
eyes brightened with quick upweUings of sympathy, 
“ No, dear ; it will doubtless be in everybody’s 
mouth before many days. You remember what I 
told you once about Dick’s prospects ? — that day 
we were on top of El Keposo ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ W ell, I think the Little Myriad is n’t going to 
keep its promise ; Dick thinks so.” 

Myra sat quietly under it for a little while, and 
then got up to go to the window. When she spoke 
she did not turn her head. 

“ He will be ruined, you said. What will you 
do, Connie ? ” 

“I? What can I do? Poppa woidd lend him 
more money, but he would n’t take it, — not from 
us.” 

Silence while the bronze-figured clock on the man- 
tel measured a full minute. Then : — 

“ There is one way you can make him take it.” 

“ How?” 


V 


THE HELPERS 


271 


Myra gave a quick glance over her shoulder, as if 
to make sure that her cousin was still sitting under 
the chandelier. 

“ He believes — and so does your father — that 
it is only a question of time and more money. He 
could n’t refuse to take his wife’s money.” 

Miss Van Vetter heard a little gasp, which, to 
her strained sense, seemed to be more than half a 
sob, and the arc-light swinging from its wire across 
the avenue was blurred for her. Then Connie’s 
voice, soft and low-pitched in the silence of the book- 
lined room, came to her as from a great distance. 

“You are quite mistaken, Myra, dear ; mistaken 
and — and very blind. Dick is my good brother, — 
the only one I ever had ; not my father’s son, but 
yet my brother. There has been no thought of 
anyijhing else between us. Besides ” — 

Myra heard light footfalls and the rustle of 
drapery, and stole another quick glance over her 
shoulder. The big pivot-chair under the chandelier 
was empty. The door into the hall was ajar, and 
Connie’s face, piquant with suppressed rapture, was 
framed in the aperture. 

“ Besides, you good, dense, impracticable cuzzy, 
dear, — are you listening ? — Dick is head over ears 
in love with — you.” 

The door slammed softly on the final word, and 
there was a quick patter of flying feet on the stairs. 
Myra kept her place at the window ; but when the 
arc-light had parted with its blurring aureole she 
drew the big pivot-chair to the desk and sat down to 
write. 


272 


THE HELPERS 


What she had in mind seemed not to say itself 
readily, and there was quite a pyramid of waste 
paper in the basket before she had finished her two 
letters. She left them on the hall table when she 
went up to her room, and Connie found them in the 
morning on her way to the breakfast-room to pour 
her father’s coffee. 

“ I wish I might read them,” she said, with the 
mischievous light danciQg in her eyes. “ It'’s de- 
liciously suspicious ; a letter to Dick, and one to her 
man of business, all in a breath, and right on the 
heels of my little bomb-shell. If she ever tries to 
discipline me again, — well, she ’d better not, that ’s 
aU.” 


\ 




CHAPTER XXV 


Two days after his return to the mine on Topeka 
Mountain, Bartrow received a letter. It came up 
from Alta Vista by the hands of one of the work- 
men who had been down to the camp blacksmith 
shop with the day’s gathering of duUed tools, and 
was considerably the worse for handling when it 
reached its destination. Connie’s monogram was on 
the flap of the envelope, but the address was not in 
Connie’s handwriting. So much Bartrow remarked 
while he was questioning the tool-carrier. 

“Took you a good while, didn’t it? Was Pat 
sober to-day ? ” 

“ Naw ; swimmin’ full, same as usual.” 

“ Spoil anything ? ” 

“ Burnt up a driU ’r two, spite of aU I could do. 
Laid off to lick me when he got through, but I lit 
out ’fore he got round to it.” 

“ Did, eh ? It ’s a pity ; he ’s a good blacksmith 
if he ’d only let whiskey alone. Try him in the 
morning next time, and maybe you ’ll catch him 
sober.” 

“ Don’t make any dif ’rence ’bout the time o’ day 
with him. He ’s full all the time, he is.” 

Bartrow’s curiosity was beginning to bestir itself, 
but he put it under foot tiU he had chmbed to the 


274 


THE HELPERS 


three-roomed cabin on tlie bench above the tunnel- 
opening. W^un Ling was laying the table for sup- 
per, and the master of the mine sat down on the 
porch to read his letter. It was from Miss Van 
Vetter ; and the glow on Bartrow’s sunburned face 
as he read it was not altogether the ruddy reflection 
from the piled-up masses of sunset crimson in the 
western sky. 

“ Dear Mr. Bartrow,” she wrote : “ Mr. Lans- 
dale has just been here, and we made him tell us 
about your trouble, though he tried very hard not 
to. From which we infer that you did n’t want us 
to know, — and that was wrong. If one cannot go 
to one’s friends at such times, it is surely a very 
thankless world. 

“ Constance told me some time ago that you 
might not be able to go on with the Little Myriad 
without the investment of more capital, and I have 
written about it to a friend of mine in the East 
who has money to invest. You may call it a most 
unwarrantable impertinence if you please, but I ’m 
not going to apologize for it, — not here. If you 
would really like to humble me, I ’ll give you plenary 
indulgence when you come to see us. 

“ I inclose my friend’s Philadelphia address, and 
I may say with confidence that I am quite sure he 
will help you if you will write him. 

“We have abundant faith in you and in the 
Little Myriad. Don’t think of giving up, and please 
don’t evade us when you are next in Denver.” 

Bartrow absorbed it by littles, and sat fingering 

\ 




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275 


the slip of paper with the Philadelphia address on 
it, quite unheedful of Wun Ling’s thrice-repeated 
announcement that supper was ready. It was his 
first letter from her, and the fact was easily subver- 
sive of presence of mind. Not until the lilt of it 
had a little outworn itself could he bring h im self 
down to any fair-minded consideration of the offer 
of help. But when it finally came to that, he put 
the letter in his pocket and went in to supper, 
smiling ineffably and shaking his head as one who 
has set his face flintwise against temptation. 

An hour later, however, when he was smoking 
his pipe on the porch step, the temptation beset him 
afresh. His faith in the ultimate success of the 
mine had never wavered. It was unshaken even 
now, when he was at the end of his resources, and 
a thing had happened which threatened to demand a 
costly change in the method of exploiting the lode. 
But to be confident for himself and for those who, 
knowing the hazard, had helped him hitherto, was 
one thing ; and to take a stranger’s money was quite 
another. And when the stranger chanced to be the 
friend of the woman he loved, a person who would 
invest in the Little Myriad solely on the ground 
of Miss Van Vetter’s recommendation, the differ- 
ence magnified itself until it took the shape of a pro- 
hibition. 

The light had faded out of the western sky, and 
the peaks of the main range stood out in shadowy 
relief against the star-dusted background. The 
homely noises in Wun Ling’s sanctum had ceased, 


276 


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and silence begirt the great mountain. Bartrow 
tossed the extinct pipe through an open window, and 
began to pace the length of the slab-floored porch. 
It was not in him to give up without another 
struggle ; a final struggle, he called it, though none 
knew better that there is no final struggle for a 
strong man save that which crowns perseverance 
with the chaplet of fruition. The temptation to 
grasp the hand held out to him was very subtle. If 
Miss Van Vetter could have been eliminated — if 
only the proposal had come direct from the Pliila- 
delphia capitalist, instead of through her. 

The sound of footsteps on the gravel at the tun- 
nel’s mouth broke into his reverie, and the figure of 
a man loomed dimly in the darkness at the foot of 
the path leading up to the cabin. It was McMur- 
trie, the mining engineer in charge of the Big 
Boilanza at Alta Vista. Bartrow called down to 
him. 

“ Is that you, Mac ? Don’t come up ; I ’ll be 
with you in a second.” 

The engineer sat down on a tool-box and waited. 

“I’m a little late,” he said, when Bartrow came 
down the path. “ It ’s pay-day at the Bonanza. 
Get a lamp and let ’s go in and have a look at your 
new grief.” 

“ You did n’t need to tramp up here in the dark,” 
Bartrow rejoined, feeling in a niche in the timbering 
for a miner’s lamp. “ I ’d given you up for to- 
night.” 

“ Oh, I said I ’d come, and I ’m here. I know 


V 


THE HELPERS 


277 


how it feels to be on the ragged edge, — been there 
myseH. Is that the best lamp you could find? It 
is n’t much better than a white bean. Pick it up a 
little higher so I can see the wet spots. It ’s too 
chilly to go in swimming to-night.” 

They were picking their way through the damp 
tunnel, Bartrow ahead with the lamp held high. 
The “ new grief ” was an apparent change in the 
direction of the ore-bearing crevice from its slight 
inclination upward to a sharp pitch downward ; and 
Bartrow had asked McMurtrie to come up and look 
at it. 

In the heading the engineer took the lamp and 
made a careful examination of the rock face of the 
cutting, tracing the outline of the vein with the 
flame of the lamp, and picking off bits of the shat- 
tered rock to determine the lines of cleavage. Bar- 
trow stood aside and waited for the verdict ; waited 
with a tense thrill of nervousness which was quite 
new to him ; and the monotonous drip-drip of the 
water percolating through the tunnel roof magnified 
itseK into a din like the ringing of hammers upon 
an anvil. 

“Well, what do you say?” he queried, when the 
engineer made an end and began to fill his pipe. 

“ You ’re in for it, Dick, — here, hold this lamp a 
minute, will you ? It ’s a pretty well-defined dip in 
the formation, and I ’m afraid it has come to stay. 
That means an incline.” 

The echo took up Bartrow’s ironical laugh and 
gave it back in mocking reiteration. 


278 


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“ Yes ; an incline at the end of a four-hundred- 
and-forty-foot tunnel, and a steam hoist, and a 
pumping outfit, and a few other little knickknacks. 
Say a couple of thousand dollars or so before I can 
turn a wheel.” 

McMurtrie bent to light his pipe at the flame of 
the lamp. “ That ’s about the size of it. Hold that 
lamp still, can’t you ? ” 

“ Hold it yourself,” retorted Bartrow ; and he 
took a turn in the darkness to steady his nerves. 
When he stumbled back into the dim nimbus of 
lamplight he had fought and won his small battle. 

“ Don’t lay it up against me, Mac,” he said, in 
blunt contrition. “ It knocked me out for a minute. 
You know I ’ve been backing my luck here for all 
I ’m worth.” 

“ Yes, I know that. What will you do now ? ” 

“ Quit ; come off the perch ; shut up shop and 
pull down the blinds. It ’s aU there is to do.” 

“ And give it up ? ” 

“ And give it up. Bank ’s broke ; or at least it 
will be when I ’ve paid the men another time or 
two.” 

McMurtrie had Scotch blood in his veins, and 
was cannily chary of offering unasked advice. 
None the less, he did it. 

“ I ’d borrow a little more nerve and go on, if it 
were mine.” 

“ So would I if I could.” 

“ Can’t you ? ” 

Bartrow said “no,” changed it to “yes,” and 


V 


THE HELPERS 


279 


then qualified the assent until it, too, became a ne- 
gation. 

“ It ’s a pity,” was the engineer’s comment. “ I 
believe another hundred feet would let you in for a 
decently good thing.” 

“ So do I. But it might as well be a thousand. 
I know when I ’m downed.” 

McMurtrie scoffed openly at that, taking his pipe 
from his mouth to say : “ That ’s the one thing you 
don’t know. You ’ll chew on it a while and go to 
Denver ; and in a day or so your men will get orders 
to go on. I ’ve seen you downed before. Why 
don’t you go back East and marry a rich girl? 
That ’s the way to develop a mine.” 

It was a random shot, but it went so near the 
mark that Bartrow winced, and was thankful that 
the flaring miner’s lamp was not an arc-light. And 
his rejoinder ignored the matrimonial suggestion. 

“ You ’re off wrong this time, Mac. I wish you 
did n’t have to be. But it ’s no use. I ’m in debt 
till I can’t see out over the top of it, and I could n’t 
raise another thousand on the Myriad if I should 
try, — that is, not in Colorado. If I go to Denver 
it ’ll be to turn over my collateral and let everybody 
down as easy as I can.” 

“ Then don’t go yet a while.” 

Bartrow took the lamp and led the way out of 
the tunnel. 

“ I did mean to stand it off to the last minute,” 
he said, when they were once more under the stars, 
“but I don’t know as it ’s worth while now. Will 


280 


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you come up to tlie shack and smoke a few lines ? 
No ? Then wait till I get my coat and I ’ll walk 
down to camp with you. I want to do a little wiring 
before I turn in.” 

They parted at the railway station above the 
camp at the foot of Bonanza Mountain, and Bar- 
trow went in to send his message. In the hour of 
defeat he yearned, manlike, for sympathy; and it 
was to Connie that his cry went out. Notwithstand- 
ing the earnestness of it, the appeal was consistently 
characteristic in its wording. 

“ I ’m hunting sympathy. Can you give me a 
lonesome hour or two if I come down? Answer 
while I wait.” 

He asked the night operator to rush it, and sat 
down with his feet on the window-sill to smoke out 
the interval. A half-hour later, when the operator 
was jogging Denver for a reply to his “ rush,” the 
din of an affray floated up to the open wmdow from 
the camp in the gulch. The operator came to the 
window and looked down upon the twinkling lights 
of the town. 

“ That ’s the blacksmith again,” he said. “ He ’s 
been on a steady bat for two weeks, and the camp 
is n’t big enough to hold him.” 

“ He ’ll kiU himself, if he don’t mind,” Bartrow 
prophesied. “ He ’s raw yet, and has n’t found out 
that a man can’t stand the drink up here that he 
could in the valley.” 

“ No. Doc said he had a touch of the jimmies last 
night. He yelled for his daughter till they heard 


THE HELPERS 


281 


him up at the shaft-house of the Bonanza. Mc- 
Murtrie said ” — But what the engineer’s com- 
mentary had been was lost to Bartrow, since the 
clicking sounder was snipping out the reply to the 
“rush” message. 

The operator wrote it out and handed it to Bar- 
trow. The answer was as characteristic as the 
appeal. 

“ Two of the three of us go to Boulder to-morrow 
to return by the late train. The other one is most 
sympathetic. Come. 

“ Connie.” 


CHAPTER XXVI 


On the long day-ride from Alta Vista to Denver, 
Bartrow dwelt upon Myra’s letter until the hopeful- 
ness of it took possession of him, urging him to re- 
consider his determination to give up the fight on 
the Little Myriad. That which seems to have forti- 
fied itself beyond peradventure of doubt in the night 
season is prone to open the door to dubiety in the 
morning ; and the hope which McMurtrie’s verdict 
had quenched came to life again, setting the mill of 
retrieval agrind, though, apart from the suggestion 
in Myra’s letter, there was little enough for grist. 

From admitting the hope to considering ways and 
means was but a step in the march of returning 
confidence; and, setting aside Myra’s proposal as 
an alternative which would bring victory at the ex- 
pense of the cause in which the battle was fought, 
he was moved to break his promise to himseK and 
to ask help of Stephen Elliott. This decision was 
not reached without a day-long struggle, in which 
pride and generosity fought shoulder to shoulder 
against the apparent necessity. The pioneer had 
more than once offered to back the promise of the 
Little Myriad ; but Bartrow, knowing Elliott’s 
weakness in the matter of money keeping, had 
steadily refused to open another door of risk to the 


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283 


old man who had fathered him from boyhood, and 
whose major infirmity was an open-handed willing- 
ness to lend to any borrower. 

But the necessity was most urgent. Bartrow re- 
hearsed the condoning facts and set them over 
against his promise to himself. If he should give 
up the fight the Little Myriad would be lost, he 
would be left hopelessly in debt, and the beatific 
vision, with Miss Van Vetter for its central figure, 
vanished at once into the limbo of things unreal- 
izable. Moreover, the investment would be less 
hazardous for the pioneer than at any previous time 
in the history of the mine. Notwithstanding the 
discouragements, it was a heartening fact that the 
ore-bearing vein was steadily widening ; and the last 
mill-run assay, made a week before, had shown a 
cheering increase in value. 

Bartrow weighed the pros and cons for the twen- 
tieth time while the train was speeding over the 
ultimate mile of the long run, and finally yielded to 
the importunate urgings of the necessity. The first 
step was to take Connie into his confidence ; and 
when the train reached Denver he hurried to the 
hotel, fuU of the new hope and eager to begin the 
campaign of retrieval. While he was inscribing his 
name in the register the clerk asked a question. 

“ Just come down from the range, Mr. Bartrow? ” 
“ Yes. Can you give me my old room ? ” 
“Certainly.” The clerk wrote the number op- 
posite the name. “ What do they say up in the 
carbonate camp about the Lodestar business ? ” 


284 


THE HELPERS 


« The Lodestar ? I don’t know. I have n’t been 
in Leadville. I came down from the Bonanza dis- 
trict on the other line. Anything broke loose?” 

“Have n’t you heard? The big producer is 
played out.” 

“What!” 

“ Fact ; struck a ‘ lime horse ’ two weeks ago, and 
they’ve been keeping it dark and unloading the 
stock right and left. You are not in it, I hope ? ” 

Bartrow was not, but he knew that Elliott was ; 
knew, too, that in any unloading sauve qui pent the 
old pioneer would most hkely be one of those found 
dead in the deserted trenches. Wherefore he slurred 
his supper and hastened out to the house in Colfax 
Avenue, not to ask help, as he had prefigured, but 
to ascertain if there were not some way in which a 
broken man might tender it. 

There was a light in the library and none in the 
parlor; and Bartrow, being rather more a brevet 
member of Stephen Elliott’s family than a visitor, 
nodded to the servant who admitted him, hung up 
his coat and hat, and walked unannounced into the 
lighted room. When he discovered that the library 
held but one occupant, that the shapely head bend- 
ing over a book in the cone of light beneath the 
reading-lamp was not Connie’s, he realized the mag- 
nitude of Connie’s duplicity, and equanimity forsook 
him. 

Miss Van Vetter shut her finger in her book and 
smiled as if his sudden appearance were quite a 
matter of course. 


THE HELPERS 


285 


“I hoped you would come,” she said. “Have 
you been to dinner ? ” 

The prosaic question might have enabled a less 
ingenuous man to cover his discomposure with some 
poor verbal mantle of commonplace or what not; 
but Bartrow could only murmur “Good Lord!” 
sinking therewith into the hollow of the nearest 
chair because his emotion was too great to be borne 
standing. 

Since she was not a party to Connie’s small plot, 
Myra was left to infer that her visitor was iU, and 
she rose in sympathetic concern. 

“Why, Mr. Bartrow! is anything the matter? 
Shall I get you something ? a glass of wine, or ” — 

Bartrow shook his head and besought her with 
both hands to sit down again. “No, nothing, 
thank you ; it ’s miles past that sort of mending. 
Do you — do you happen to know where your 
cousin is ? ” 

“ Why, yes ; she has gone to Boulder with Uncle 
Stephen.” 

“I — I thought you were going,” Bartrow stam- 
mered. 

It did not occur to Miss Van Vetter to wonder 
why he should have thought anything about it. 

“ I thought so myself, up to the last moment,” 
she rejoined. 

Bartrow leaned forward with his hands on his 
knees. 

“ Miss Myra, would you — do you mind telling 
me why you did n’t go ? ” He said it with reproach- 
ful gravity. 


286 


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Miss Van Vetter’s poise was an inheritance which 
had lost nothing in transmission, but the unconscious 
reproach in his appeal overset it. Under less try- 
ing conditions her laugh would have emancipated 
him ; but being still in the bonds of unreadiness, he 
could only glower at her in a way which lacked 
nothing of hostility save intention, and say, “ I 
should think you might tell me what you ’re laugh- 
ing at ! ” 

“ Oh, nothing — nothing at all. Only one would 
think you were sorry I did n’t go. Are you ? ” 

“ You know well enough I ’m not.” This time 
the reproach was not imconscious. “ But you have n’t 
answered my question. I have a horrible suspicion, 
and I want to know.” 

“ It was Connie’s mistake. I was to meet them 
at the station at half past four — I am sure she said 
half past four — and when I went down I found the 
train had been gone an hour. Did you ever hear 
of such a thing ? ” 

Miss Van Vetter did not know that the small 
arch-plotter had exhausted her ingenuity trying to 
devise some less primitive means of accomplishing 
her purpose; but Bartrow gave Connie full credit 
for act and intention. 

“ She ’d do worse things than that ; she would n’t 
stick at anything to carry her point,” he said 
unguardedly. 

Myra laughed again. “ I hope you don’t ask 
me to believe that she did it purposely,” she said. 

“ Oh, no ; of course not. I don’t ask you to 


THE HELPERS 


287 


believe anything — except that I ’m foolishly glad 
you missed the train,” rejoined the downright one, 
beginning to find himself. 

“Are you, really? I was almost ready to^ doubt 
it.” 

Bartrow was not yet fit to measure swords of 
repartee with any one, least of all with Miss Van 
Vetter, and the quicksand of speechlessness engulfed 
him. His helplessness was so palpable that it pre- 
sently became infectious, and Myra was dismayed to 
find herself growing sympathetically self-conscious. 
Her letter lay between their last meeting and tliis, 
and she began to wonder if that were the barrier. 
When the silence became portentous, Bartrow gath- 
ered himself for another dash toward enlargement. 
It was that or asphyxia. The very air of the room 
was heavy with the narcosis of embarrassment. 

“ Your letter came yesterday,” he began abruptly. 

“ Did it ? And you have come to tell me to — to 
tell me to mind my own business? as I said you 
might ? ” 

“ No, indeed, I have n’t. But I can’t do it, all 
the same — drag your friend in on the Myriad.” 

“Was Mr. Lansdale mistaken? Don’t you need 
more capital to go on with ? ” 

“Need it? — well, yes; rather. But I can’t take 
your Mr. Grimsby’s money.” 

“ Why not?” 

“ Because ” — the low-pitched hollow of the big 
lounging-chair seemed to put him at a disadvantage, 
and he struggled up out of it to tramp back and 


288 


THE HELPERS 


forth before her — “ well, in the first place, because 
he is yoiu* friend ; and if he was n’t, I have no 
security to offer him — collateral, I suppose he ’d 
caU it.” 

“He is not exactly my friend, within your mean- 
ing of the word ; and he will not ask you to secure 
him.” 

He stopped and looked down upon her. She was 
shading her eyes from the sheen of the reading- 
lamp and turning the leaves of the book. 

“ What does he know about the Little Myriad ? 
anything more than you have told him?” 

“No.” 

“ And yet you say he is willing to put up money 
on it?” 

“ He is ready to help you — yes.” 

Bartrow’s brows went together in a frown of per- 
plexity. “ As long as I ’m not going to let him, I 
suppose I have n’t any right to ask questions, but ” — 

She put the book on the table and looked up at 
him with something of Connie’s steadfastness in her 
eyes. 

“ Perhaps I was foolish to try to make even such 
a small mystery of it; but I thought — I was so 
anxious to — to put it in such a way as to ” — 

The words would not discover themselves ; and 
Bartrow, to whom the mystery was now no mystery, 
helped her over the obstruction. 

“ As to make it easy for me. I think I catch on, 
after so long a time. Mr. Grimsby is your business 
manager, is n’t he ? ” 


THE HELPERS 


289 


“ My solicitor ; yes.” 

“ That ’s what I meant. And it was going to be 
your own money ? ” 

“Yes.” 

He met her gaze with a smile of mingled triumph 
and admiration. 

“ It was a close call, and you ’ll never know how 
near I came to falling down,” he said. “ It was a 
fearful temptation.” 

The pencilled brows went up with a httle arch of 
interrogation between them. 

“ A temptation ? Why do you call it that ? ” 

Bartrow was slowly coming to his own in the 
matter of unconstraint. “ If you had ever dabbled 
in mineral, you’d know. When a fellow gets in 
about so deep, he ’d foreclose the mortgage on his 
grandfather’s farm to get money to go on with. I 
did n’t read between the lines in your letter. I thought 
the Philadelphia man was some friend of yours who 
was interested in a general way, and the temptation 
to faU on his neck and weep was almost too much 
for me.” 

“ You stiU call it a temptation.” 

“ It was just that, and nothing less. I had the 
toughest kind of a fight with myself before I could 
say no, and mean it.” 

“ But why should you say no? You believe in the 
Little Myriad, don’t you ? ” 

“ Sure. But that ’s for myself — and for a few 
people who knew the size of the risk when they 
staked me. So far as I ’ve gone with it, it ’s only a 


290 


THE HELPERS 


big game of chance ; and I would n’t let you put 
your money into it unless I knew it was the surest 
kind of a sure thing.” 

“ Not if I believe in it, too ? Not if I am willing 
to take the chances that you and the others have 
taken ? ” Myra conceived that her mistake lay in 
putting it upon the ground of a purely business 
transaction, and changed front with truly feminine 
adroitness. “ Won’t you let me have just a tiny 
share of it? Enough so that when I go back to 
Philadelphia I can say that I am interested in a 
mine ? I should think you might. I ’ll promise to 
be the most tractable and obedient stockholder you 
have.” 

She made the plea like a spoiled child begging for 
a toy, but there was no mistaking the earnestness 
of it. Bartrow felt his fine determination oozing, 
and was moved to tramp again, making a circuit 
of the entire room this time, and saying to himself 
with many emphatic repetitions that it could not be 
possible, — that her motive was only charitable, — 
that he was nothing more to her than Connie’s 
friend. When he spoke again his circlings had 
brought him to the back of her chair. 

“You’re making it fearfully hard for me, and 
the worst of it is that you don’t seem to know it. 
You think I am a mining crank, hke aU the rest of 
them, and so I am ; but there was method in my 
madness. I never cared overmuch for money until 
I came to know what it is to love a woman who has 
too much of it.” 


THE HELPERS 


291 


There was manifestly no reply to he made to such 
a pointless speech as this, and when he resumed his 
circumambulatory march she began to turn the 
leaves of the book again. When it became evident 
that he was not going to elucidate, she said, “ Mean- 
ing Connie?” 

“ No, not meaning Connie.” He had drifted 
around to the back of her chair again. “ I wish 
you ’d put that book away for a few minutes. It 
owls me.” 

“ I will, if you will stop circling about and talk- 
ing down on me from the ceiling. It ’s dreadfully 
distressing.” 

He laughed and drew up a chair facing her ; drew 
it up until the arm of it touched hers. 

“ It ’s a stand-off,” he said, with cheerful effront- 
ery ; “ only I did n’t mean my part of it. Let ’s see, 
where were we ? You said, ‘ Meaning Connie,’ and 
I said, ‘ No, not meaning Connie.’ I meant some 
one else. Until I met her, the Little Myriad was 
merely a hole in the ground, not so very different 
from other holes in the ground except that it was 
mine — and it was n’t the Little Myriad then, either. 
After that, it got its name changed, and its mission, 
too. From that day its business was to make it 
possible for me to go to her and say, ‘ I love you ; 
you, yourself, and not your money. I’ve money 
enough of my own.’ ” 

She heard him through with the face of a graven 
image. “ And now ? ” 

“ And now I can’t do it ; I can never do it, I ’m 


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THE HELPERS 


afraid. The Little Myriad has gone back on me, 
and I ’m nearer flat broke to-day than I Ve ever 
been.’^ 

“ But this unfortunate young person who has too 
much money — she is young, is n’t she ? — has she 
nothing to say about it ? ” 

Bartrow answered his own thought rather than 
her question. “ She could n’t be happy with every- 
body saying she ’d staked her husband.” 

“ Has she told you that ? ” 

“ No ; but it ’s so, — you know it ’s so.” 

Bartrow was no juggler in figures of speech, and 
his fictitious third person threatened to become un- 
manageable. 

Her smile was good to look upon. “ I don't 
know anything of the kind. I think she would be 
very foolish to let such an absurd thing make her 
imhappy — supposing any one should be unkind 
enough to say it.” 

“They would say it, and I’d hear of it; and 
then there ’d be trouble.” 

“ But you say you love her ; is n’t your love 
strong enough to rise above such things ? You think 
the sacrifice would be hers, but it would n’t; it 
would be yours.” 

“ I don’t see how you make that out.” 

Myra’s heart sank within her. It hurt her im- 
measurably to be driven to plead her own cause, but 
the money-fact was inexorable ; and the look in 
Bartrow’s eyes was her warrant when she dared to 
read it. 


THE HELPERS 


293 


“ Oh} can’t you see ? ” The words wrought them- 
selves into a plea, though she strove to say them dis- 
passionately. “ If it touch your self-respect ever so 
little, the sacrifice is aU yours.” 

That point of view was quite new to Bartrow. He 
took time to think it out, but when the truth 
clinched itself he went straight to the mark. 

“ I never saw that side of it before — don’t quite 
see it now. But if you do, that ’s different. It ’s 
you, httle woman ; and I do love you — you, your- 
self, and not your money. I wish I could go on and 
say the rest of it, but I can’t. WiU you take me 
for better or for worse — with an even chance that 
it ’s going to be all worse and no better ? ” 

Her eyes filled with quick tears, and her voice was 
tremulous. “ It would serve you right if I should 
say no ; you ’ve fairly made me beg you to ask me! ” 
Her hand was on the arm of the chair, and he 
possessed himseff of it and raised it to his lips with 
gentle reverence. 

“ You ’ll have to begin making allowances for me 
right at the start,” he said humbly. “When I make 
any bad breaks you must remember it ’s because 
I don’t know any better, and that away down deep 
under it all I love you well enough to — to go to 
jail for you. Will you wait for me while I skirmish 
around and try to get on my feet again ? ” 

“No ” — with sweet petulance. 

“ There it is, you see ; another bad break right 
on top of the first. Suppose you talk a while and 
let me listen. I ’m good at listening.” 


294 


THE HELPERS 


“ I ’ll wait, if you want me to, — and if you will 
let me help you to go on with the Little Myriad.” 

Bartrow’s laugh had a ring of boyish joy in it. 

“ Back to the old cross-roads, are n’t we ? I ’ll 
let you in on it now ; but if you take the mine you’ll 
have to take the man along with the other incum- 
brances, — simultaneously, so to speak.” 

“ I thought you were anxious to wait.” 

“ If you were as poor as I am, I ’d ask you to 
make it high noon to-morrow.” 

“ Oh ! the money again. Can’t we put it aside, 
once for all ? There is n’t so much of it as you may 
imagine.” 

Bartrow overleaped the barrier at a bound. 

“ Then let ’s make it noon to-morrow. If we are 
going to push the Myriad I ought to go back to- 
morrow night.” 

She tried to scoff at him, but there was love in 
her eyes. 

“Connie said once that you were Young-man- 
afraid-of-his-horses, but she does n’t know you. I 
believe you more than half mean it.” 

“ I do mean it. If I sit here and look at you 
much longer I shall be begging you to make it nine 
o’clock instead of twelve. Don’t ask me to wait 
very long. It ’ll be hard enough to go off and leave 
you afterward. It ’s a good bit more than a hundred 
miles in a straight line from Denver to Topeka 
Mountain.” 

“ I ’m going with you,” she said calmly. 

“ You ? — to live in a wicky-up on the side of a 


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bald mountain ? But you know what it is ; you ’ve 
been there. You ’d die of the blues in a week.” 

“Would I?” She rose and stood beside his 
chair. “ You don’t know much about me, yet, do 
you ? If the ‘ wicky-up ’ is good enough for you, it 
is good enough for me. I am going with you, and 
I ’m going to make that dear little log cabin a place 
that you wiU always be glad to remember, — if I 
can.” 

He drew her down on the arm of the chair. 

“ Don’t talk to me that way, Myra, — you must n’t, 
you know. I ’m not used to it, and it breaks me all 
up. If you say another word I shall want to make 
it seven o’clock in the morning instead of nine.” 

“ Can you wait a month ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Three weeks? ” 

“ No.” 

She gave up in despair. “You are dreadfuUy 
imreasonable.” 

“ I know it ; I was born that way and I can’t 
help it. I sha’n’t insist on to-morrow, because I ’m 
not sure that Wun Ling has anything for us to eat; 
but one week from to-morrow, when I ’ve had time 
to stock up and straighten up a bit, is going to be 
the limit. Can you make it ? ” 

“ What if I say no ? ” 

“ I shall come anyway.” 

She bent over until her lips touched his forehead. 

“ That is your answer, only you don’t deserve it. 
And now will you answer my question? I asked 


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you when you came in if you had been to dinner, 
and you said ‘ Good Lord ! ’ ” 

“ Did I ? I think I must have been a bit rattled^ 
You see, I ’d just heard some bad news, and I was 
expecting to find Connie, and was n’t expecting to 
find you.” 

“ Did Connie write you she would meet you ? ” 

He had one hand free to fish out the day-old tele- 
gram and give it to her. She read it with a swift 
blush crimsoning cheek and neck. 

“ The unscrupulous little tyke ! ” she said ; and 
then, with self-defensive tact : “ But you said you 
had bad news.” 

“ Yes. A mine that our good old Uncle Steve is 
pretty deeply into has gone dry.” 

“ Failed, you mean ? ” 

“ Yes, that ’s it. I wish you ’d teach me how to 
talk English, — good clean English, like yours. 
Connie has tried it, but pshaw ! she ’s worse than I 
am. But about the Lodestar: I don’t know how 
deep the old man is in ; he ’s such an innocent old 
infant about putting up money that I ’m awfully 
afraid they have salted him. You must pmnp Con- 
nie and find out. I’ll be in Leadville to-morrow 
night, and if there is anything to be done on the 
ground I ’U do it. The old man has been a second 
father to me.” 

Myra promised, and went back once more to the 
unanswered dinner query. 

“Now you remind me of it, I believe I haven’t 
been to dinner,” he admitted. “ But that ’s nothing ; 


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a meal or two more or less is n’t to be mentioned at 
such a time as this.” 

“ I am going to get you something.” 

“ No, don’t ; I ’m too happy to eat.” 

But she insisted, and when she came back with a 
dainty luncheon on a tea-tray he did ample justice 
to it, if for no better reason than that she sat on 
the other side of the small reading-table and made 
tea for him. 

Afterward, when the time drew near for the 
EUiotts’ return, he took his leave, though it was yet 
early. 

“ They are the best friends I have on earth,” he 
said, when Myra went to the door with him, “ but 
somehow, I feel as if I did n’t want to meet anybody 
I know, — not to-night. I want to have it all to 
myseK for a few hours.” 

She laughed at that ; a laugh with an upbubbling 
of content and pure happiness in it ; and sent him off 
with his heart afire. When he was halfway down the 
walk she recalled him. He came back obediently. 

“ It wiU cost you something every time you do 
that,” he protested, exacting the penalty. “Was 
that what you wanted ? ” 

“ Of course not ! I merely wanted to ask you 
what it is to ‘ owl ’ a person. You said I ‘ owled ’ 
you.” 

“ Did I ? WeU, you don’t ; you never can. That 
is the best definition I can think of ; something you 
can never do to me. May I say good-night again ? 
the way I did a minute ago ? ” ' 


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The glare of the arc-light swinging between its 
poles across the avenue was quite ruthless, and there 
were passers-by in straggling procession on the side- 
walk. But at the critical instant the kindly incan- 
descence burned blue, clicked, fizzed, and died down 
to a red spot in the darkness. For which cause 
Bartrow presently went his way, with the heart-fire 
upblazing afresh ; and when Myra won back to the 
library and the cosy depths of the great chair, the 
color scheme of fair neck and cheek and brow was 
not altogether the reflection from the crimson shade 
of the reading-lamp. 


CHAPTER XXVII 


CONSTANCE TO MYRA 

My dear Lady Bountiful: Your letter — • 
the ridiculous one — came yesterday. The idea of 
your proposing in the very morning of your honey- 
month to take the CoKax Avenue house and turn it 
into a home for indigent relatives! As Tommie 
would put it, “ Wot are you givin’ us ! ’’ 

But seriously, cuzzy dear, it’s quite out of the 
question. Papa would n’t hear to it, and besides, we 
are getting along very cosily now, re-learning a good 
many lessons that prosperity makes one forget. One 
of them is that gratitude is n’t quite like the dodo, — 
gone into fossilistic extinction, you know. 

Margaret Gannon is one of the instances. She 
has taken a room in our block, and there is no limit 
to her great Irish tender-heartedness. If I’d let 
her, she would make me sit down and hold my 
hands while she does the housework of our three 
rooms. In spite of all I can say or do, she does do a 
great deal of it ; and I can hear her sewing-machine 
buzzing deep into the night to pay for it. 

Tommie is another. The day we moved down 
here from the old home in Colfax Avenue that “ irre- 
claimable little savage,” as you once called him. 


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brought me his surplus of a dollar and something 
and asked me to “ blow it in ” for him. Think of 
it and weep, you luxury-spoiled darling ! I could 
have hugged him, dirt and all. And since that day 
he has been my Ariel, in more ways than you would 
think possible. He is so sharp and keen-witted; 
and his philanthropy has developed into a passion. 

Mr. Lansdale has been most kind. That is the 
proper phrase, I believe, but now that I have written 
it down it seems trite and meaningless. If I say 
that he has fairly earned the right to sign himself 
“ Kobert Lansdale, Gentleman,” you wiU under- 
stand. The change in our circumstances has been a 
test that he alone of aU our friends has been able to 
endure unmoved. I don’t say that others are not 
kind and sympathetic, but they are — well, they 
are different. Now that I can say it without hurt- 
ing you, I ’ll admit that I ’ve always had a good bit 
of contempt for culture of the imported variety (I 
think I have been spelling it “culchah”), but Mr. 
Lansdale has converted me. It is worth something 
to be able to rise superior to circumstances, — the 
circumstances of others, I mean, — and, between .us 
two, it ’s a virtue to which we new people have n’t 
quite attained. 

I presume you read the Denver papers, and if 
you do you know aU I could teU you about the per- 
son whom you once said was better worth saving 
than other people. Mr. Lansdale, who was one of 
the original trio, you remember, talks very sparingly 
of Mr. Jeffard ; from which I infer that there is n’t 


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much to be said, — in mixed company. The newly 
arrived one lives in an apartment building, and 
papa says they are beginning to call him a miser 
on the street. They ’d say that of any capitalist 
who would n’t invest in at least one “ ground-floor ” 
a day ; but I think you will agree with me that they 
can’t say anything worse than the truth about him. 
I have n’t had the ill-chance to meet him yet (I hope 
I ’ll be spared that), but I am afraid Tommie has 
been spying upon him, — for reasons of his own 
which he won’t explain. I happened to overhear 
the final volley of a small battle royal between my 
Ariel and Margaret the other day, which had in it 
a hint of an unnamable thing, — a thing which in- 
volves Margaret and the unworthy one. You may 
remember that he once posed as her deus ex machina. 
And she has grown dangerously beautiful in her 
year of uprightness. 

When you write, tell me aU about your plans for 
the summer ; and believe me always 

Your cousin-content, 

Connie. 


MYRA TO CONSTANCE 

Dear Connie : Keally, the S. P. C. C. ought 
to take you in hand ! To think of the cold-blooded 
way in which you hoodwinked us up to the very last 
moment, making us believe that the Lodestar in- 
volvement was next to nothing, and keeping the home 
intact solely for the purpose of providing a proper 
stage-setting for the final act of our little comedy- 


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drama ! It ’s fairly heart-breaking ; the more since 
you won’t let us share with you, as we ’d be glad to. 
Before you saw fit to confide in us, Dick had used 
every argument short of a pick-handle to convince 
me that I should presently go back to Denver and 
creature comforts, leaving him here to go on delving 
in the Myriad. I only laughed at him, but I ’ll re- 
cant if you will listen to reason, and let me make a 
home for you and Uncle Stephen. But as between 
living a three-quarter widow in Denver on mere 
visiting terms with you and your father, and hiber- 
nating here with Dick, you may be sure I shall 
choose the latter. 

We are both as enthusiastic as can be over the 
prospects of the mine. The new machinery is on 
the way, and we are down twenty feet on the incline. 
Another month will surely carry it into pay-rock. 
(You see I am learning to talk “ mineral-English ” 
with the best of them.) Under the circumstances, 
I don’t blame Dick for wanting to stay right here 
every day ; and it won’t be so lonesome for me as 
you may imagine. You see I have Dick, and he can 
be a whole cityful upon occasion. 

You would n’t know “ The Eyrie ” (Dick says the 
altitude is so great that we had to have a high- 
sounding name) since we have begun to remodel it. 
We are to have another room, a larger kitchen for 
Wun Ling (oh, he is a celestial treasure! — quite 
the archangel of the culinary host), a huge chimney, 
with immense fireplaces, against a possible winter 
here, and a wider porch, — board-floored, if you 


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please. And inside I have rugged and portiered, 
and pictured and bric-a-bracked, until the pristine 
barkiness of the place is all but effaced. 

So far, with the exception of an occasional call 
from Mr. McMurtrie, we have been “ each other’s 
own best company ; ” but if I stay up all summer it 
will be conditional upon your and Uncle Stephen’s 
spending at least a month with us when the hot 
weather makes your block uncomfortable. Don’t 
say no beforehand, unless you want to make me 
quite disgusted. 

Mr. Lansdale is a lineal descendant in the direct 
line of the Chevalier, — the sans peur et sans re- 
proche one ; you know I ’ve always said that of him. 
It chokes me when I think of what is lying in wait 
for him. Isn’t there the least little glimmer of 
hope ? He looked so bright and eager on our wed- 
ding day that I could almost make myself believe he 
was going to get well. You must be very, very 
careful, Connie dear ; not to encourage him too 
much, I mean ; not unless you — but I sha’n’t say 
it without your warrant. 

What you say about Margaret Gannon’s Irish 
true-heartedness reminds me of our own wild Irish- 
man. He is the mine blacksmith, a perfect Sheridan 
for wit and repartee when he is sober, and a maniac 
of maniacs when he is drunk, — which happens when- 
ever Dick relaxes his vigilance for a single hour. 

The other day Pat (if he has any other name 
I ’ve never heard it) did a thing heroic. They are 
using dynamite in the tunnel, and after the noon 


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blasts one of the miners went in before the deadly 
gas had been properly “ ventilated ” out. One of 
the others saw him stumble and go headlong down 
the incline, and the cry went back to the entrance. 
Pat heard it (he was sober that day), flung his tools 
to the four winds, dashed into the pit of death, and 
came out black in the face, but with the man on his 
shoulder, just as Dick got down to the entrance. 
W as n’t that fine ? 

As you surmise, we have read all that the news- 
papers are saying about Mr. Jeffard. Is n’t it queer 
that he should develop into a millionaire miser! 
Dick has told me a great deal about him, — at 
least about the Mr. Jeffard he used to know, — and 
whatever sins he may have had to answer for in 
those days, avarice was not one of them. I suppose 
it is another case of money-spoiling, but I can’t help 
wanting to doubt your latest suspicion of him. I 
read your letter to Dick, and he shook his head when 
I came to that part ; said he could n’t believe it, 
even on your testimony, — that the man might be 
capable of aU sorts of villainy, but not that. So I 
am going over to Dick’s point of view far enough to 
ask you not to be too hard upon the “unworthy 
one ” just because he is no longer one of your pov- 
erty-stricken sinners, — he was that once, was n’t 
he ? The rich sinners need charity quite as really 
as the poor ; of a different kind, to be sure, and not 
always as easy to exercise as the other, but none the 
less necessary. 

This is all you are going to get to-night. Dick 


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has just come up from the mine, and he says I 
sha’n’t write any more whatever. 

Your loving cousin, 

Myra. 


LANSDALE TO BARTROW 

My Dear Richard : — What with a mine for 
a taskmaster and a wife for your leisure I can fancy 
you tossing this letter aside unopened. But the 
promise which you exacted is herein kept, and it 
must plead my excuse for breaking into your honey- 
moon with a few pages of barren gossip. 

First, as to Miss Elliott and her good father. 
Your foreboding went nearer the mark than the 
ostensible fact. They were merely postponing the 
evil day until after your wedding, and when the 
crash came it turned out to be no less than a catas- 
trophe. Stephen Elliott met it like a man, giving 
up everything to his creditors, and coming down to 
a life of the barest necessities with the serenity of a 
philosopher, happy, apparently, that the well of assets 
was deep enough to brim the tank of liability, though 
at the expense of the final drop. 

I am told that he was left quite without resources 
other than a small sum of money which one of the 
creditors absolutely refused to accept ; and he assures 
me that he will once more shoulder pick and shovel 
and go afield again as soon as the season is a little 
farther advanced. I confess frankly that the heroism 
of it bedazes me. If there be any finer example of 
dauntlessness in the heart of man, the novellers have 


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not yet portrayed it for us. He was sixty-three last 
January, and he promises to hegiij the search for an- 
other competence with all the enthusiasm and ardor 
of youth ! 

Constance you know, and I need not assure you 
that the sudden down-dropping touches her not at 
aU ; or if at all, only on the side of her beneficences 
to others. So far as one may perceive, the change 
for her is only of encompassments. She is as 
much above it as she was superior to the cheapening 
effect of an elastic bank account. To me she seems 
the sweeter for the chastening, though really, I pre- 
sume, she is neither better nor worse for it, — nor 
any different. You may be sure that my first call 
upon them after the submergence was made with a 
heartful of sympathy, — which I took away with me, 
and with it a lesson in sincerity and simple-hearted- 
ness rare enough in my experience. There is gentle 
blood and enviable in these two. My pen is too 
clumsy to ink in the details of this picture for you. 

As to Jeffard: When he made his appearance 
I struck hands with your point of view sufficiently 
to meet him as if nothing save good fortune had 
overtaken him, — an attitude which it is sometimes 
as difficult for me to maintain as it appears alto- 
gether impossible for some others who used to know 
him. By which you will understand that he is 
ostracized in a way, or would be in any casting of 
the potsherd votes by the unthinking majority. 

I am bound to say, however, that the whiplash of 
public opinion does not seem to be quite long enough 


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307 


to reach him. A fortnight ago, for reasons chari- 
table or experimental, as you please, I got him a 
bidding to one of Mrs. Calmaine’s “ridottos.” You 
know Mrs. Calmaine and her tolerance, and you will 
appreciate the situation when I tell you that I had 
to manoeuvre a bit for the formal invitation, though 
Jeffard used to be in her good book. Jeffard ac- 
cepted, and I went with him to see what would 
befall. There were a good many there who had 
known the prehistoric Jeffard, and while they did 
not pointedly ignore him, they seemed to be divided 
between a desire to cold-shoulder the man and to 
conciliate the prospective millionaire ; — wherefore 
they compromised by giving him what you would 
call “ the high hand-shake.” 

Whatever may have been my motive in dragging 
him into it, Jeffard’ s own reasons for going were 
confessedly experimental. So much he confided to 
me on our early retreat from the house of mirth. 
“ I wanted to find out where I stand,” he said, “ and 
these good people have been quite explicit. Don’t 
get me any more invitations.” And after a time 
he added, ‘‘ I can buy them when I want them.” 
From which you will infer that he will henceforth 
sit in the seat of the scornful, and this, I fear, is the 
lamentable fact. 

Touching his present mode of life, it borders on 
the puzzling. With a bank deposit which is cur- 
rently reported to reach seven figures, and which is 
doubtless well up in the sixes, he lives in two rooms 
in a block, and takes his meals at the club. A very 


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rich spendthrift might do this, you will say, saving 
at the spigot and wasting at the bung ; but so far as 
my observation goes, JefPard seems not to know that 
his barrel has a bung. And if any of the staves 
have started on the side of dissipation, the leak is 
not yet apparent to me. The other evening, when I 
let drive a little arrow pointed with a gibe at his 
penuriousness, he laughed and reminded me of some- 
thing he had said one night in the famine time 
when we were dining by the help of a small windfall 
of mine. “I told you I should be a miser if the 
tide ever turned,” said he, “ and you scoffed at me. 
I assure you I can account for every dollar I have 
spent since the Midas began to pour them in.” 

This is his attitude as he defines it, but I can 
qualify the accusation a little on the friendly side. 
I should rather say that he had set his mark at 
thrifty frugality. He is not niggardly ; in benevo- 
lences which may be paid for in the coin of effort 
he is still generous; and if he were living on a 
clerk’s income people would commend him. 

But I fancy I hear you cry “ Enough ! ” and this 
ends with the heartiest good wishes for you both. 

Faithfully yours, 

Kobekt Lansdale. 


CHAPTER XXYIII 


Lansdale had defined himseK as a reporter on the 
“ Coloradoan,’’ but in reality he was rather more, — 
or less, — being that anomalous member of a news- 
paper staff known as the literary editor. Kershaw 
had taken him in doubtfully, and had afterward 
wondered why a man with such an evident gift for 
journalistic work should prefer to spend his days 
and nights writing stories which no one would buy. 
For, contrary to all precedent, when he could sink 
his literary ambitions the fictionist proved to be a 
general utility journalist of no uncertain ability, 
running the office gamut from proof-reading in an 
emergency to filling the editorial columns on the rare 
occasions when Kershaw was absent. 

It was during one of the Kershawan absences that 
the letter to Bartrow was written ; and the hands of 
the paper-weight clock on the desk were pointing to 
the supper hour when Lansdale dropped the pen 
and drew down the desk-curtain. Unlike his chief, 
he rarely ignored the supper recess, though a walk 
in the open air often took the place of the meal; and 
having his night’s work well in hand, he let himself 
into the corridor, said “ Down ! ” and was presently 
set afoot at the street level. 

As usual, the swift rush down the elevator-shaft 


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dizzied him, and he had to steady himself before he 
could go on. When he allowed himself to think 
about it he realized that these dizzyings were grow- 
ing commoner, and were set awhirl by slighter 
exciting causes. Another man, or a man with 
another ailment, might have given the unnerving 
weakness its true name and place and succumbed to 
it ; but Lansdale’s mHier had been love-transformed 
into unflinching hopefulness, and the trivialities of 
the daily walk had come to be so many blind and 
desperate sorties against the indrawing lines of the 
relentless besieger. For of the two lions standing 
in the way to the House Beautiful that named 
Inequality had been slain by the collapse of the 
Lodestar; wherefore this other of Ill-health must 
either slay or be slain, since love would not be 
denied. 

This was what was in his resolute step when he 
went forth into the night ; into the whirl of life 
on the peopled streets and sidewalks. Some vague 
supper promptings were present, but a stronger im- 
pulse sent him riverward, away from the thickly 
peopled walks and down into the wholesale district 
toward a shabby apartment building which had been 
left stranded on the bar of traffic when the uptown 
tide had set in. 

The little excursion was purposeless, as had been 
many another in the same direction ; but when he 
found himself opposite the stairway of the shabby 
building he wondered if he might not go up and ask 
Constance for a cup of tea. He was wise in his 


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311 


generation, and lie had long since discovered that 
the way to Constance Elliott’s heart lay through 
helpings accepted. With love abounding for any 
human soul at need, there were precious reserves of 
tenderness for those to whom she might minister. 

Lansdale glanced up at the two lighted windows 
on the third floor and crossed the street. In the 
stair archway, which was dimly lighted by a single 
inefficient gas-jet, he stumbled upon a bit of by-play, 
in which the actors were a man and a woman lean- 
ing together across the stair-rail, and a barelegged 
boy spying upon the twain from the dimnesses be- 
yond. The little tableau fell apart at the sound of 
the intruder’s footsteps. The boy vanisjied mysteri- 
ously, the woman ran upstairs, and the man turned 
half angrily, as one faulted. It was J elf ard ; and 
when he recognized Lansdale he spoke quickly, as if 
to forestall possible comment. 

“ Hello ! — think of the devil and you ’U hear the 
clatter of his hoofs. I was just about to go up to 
the print-shop to see if I could find you. Been to 
supper? ” 

“ No ; I was ” — 

Jeffard cut in again swiftly, with edgings street- 
ward. “ That ’s lucky ; neither have I. Let ’s go 
up to the club.” 

Lansdale acceded rather reluctantly, since a cup 
of tea with Constance easily outweighed the grill- 
room prospect. 

“ I ’ll go with you, though I can’t promise to play 
much of a knife and fork,” he said. “ I was just 


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going up to ask Miss Elliott to give me a cup of 
tea.’’ 

They were turning the corner above the stranded 
apartment house before Jeffard returned the shuttle 
of speech. 

“ So the Elliotts live down there now, do they? ” 

Lansdale said “ Yes,” and began to rummage in 
recollection. Had Jeffard been on Constance El- 
liott’s visiting list in the prehistoric time? It was 
probable that he had been, — with Dick Bartrow 
for his sponsor. But at this point recollection turned 
up the mental notes of a certain talk with Bartrow, 
in which the downright one had confessed his sins of 
omission Je:5^rdward. So Lansdale added a query 
to the affirmative. 

“ Yes ; they live in the Thorson Block. Do you 
know them ? ” 

Jeffard’s reply was no reply. “ I ’ll have to take 
time to think about it,” he said ; and they had 
traversed the necessary streets and found a table a 
deux in the grill-room at the club before he pieced 
out the unfinished rejoinder. 

“You asked me if I knew the Elliotts. I did 
know Miss Elliott, — as I knew some of those peo- 
ple at Mrs. Calmaine’s the other evening. It’s 
quite likely she does not remember me.” 

Lansdale’s brain went apart again, and the re- 
flective half of it continued the rummaging. On 
the two or three occasions when he had mentioned 
the newest star in the bonanzine firmament Con- 
stance had been visibly disturbed. The nature of 


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313 


her resentment had not been quite obvious, but Jef- 
fard’s tardy rejoinder made it clear. She had known 
Jeffard and w^as sorry to be reminded of him. 

Lansdale had not done full justice to himseK in 
slurring his own point of view in the letter to Bar- 
trow. So far as he had analyzed it he had been 
content to call it negative, but it was not quite that. 
On the contrary, it was coi&plaisant, concerning 
itself chiefly with the things of past sight, and not 
unduly with those of present rumor. Jeffard might 
be an indubitable scoundrel in his later reincarna- 
tion, as certain of the mining-camp newspapers had 
intimated in their accounts of the fight for posses- 
sion ; but in the older time he had been a good 
fellow and a generous friend at a pinch. Lansdale 
remembered some of the generosities, and his heart 
went soft at the recollection of them. Kershaw had 
kept the secret of the prearranged purchase of cer- 
tain unusable manuscripts, but the pigeon-holes of a 
newspaper office are open archives, and one day 
Lansdale had found a clue which he had followed 
out to his comforting; a string of hitherto unex- 
plainable incidents, with two stanch friends at the 
end of it. 

One of these loyal friends was the man at whom 
public opinion was now pointing a dubious finger ; 
and while Lansdale was munching his toast and 
drinking his cup of weak tea in troubled silence, it 
began to be discomfortingly evident that he must 
presently take sides for or against the man whose 
hospitality he was at that moment sharing. Left to 


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itself, the insularity in him would have evaded the 
issue. Loyalty of the crucible-test degree of fine- 
ness — the loyalty of the single eye — must needs 
sit below the salt at the table of any analyst of his 
kind ; and Lansdale was a student first and a par- 
tisan only when benefits unforgot constrained him. 
Moreover, frankness in the last resort is rarely at 
its best in any vivisector of his fellow-men, and it 
was with no little difficulty that Lansdale made shift 
to overleap the barrier of reserve. 

“ Jefiard,” he began, when the weak tea was low 
in the cup, “ we used to be pretty near to each other 
in a time that I like to remember ; will you bear 
with me if I say what is in my mind ? ’’ 

“ Surely,” said Jeffard ; but the tone was not of 
assurance. 

“You know what the newspapers intimated last 
fall, and what people are saying of you now ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ And that your silence makes it rather hard for 
your friends ? ” 

“ I have no friends, Lansdale.” 

“ Oh, yes, you have ; or you would have if you 
would take the trouble to set yourself aright.” 

“ What if I cannot set myself aright ? ” 

“ I should be sorry to believe that, — more than 
sorry to be driven to admit the alternative.” 

“ What is the alternative ? ” 

Lansdale hesitated, as one who has his point at 
his adversary’s breast and is loath to drive it in. “ I 
don’t quite like to put it in words, Jeffard; the 


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315 


English is a bit harsh. But you will understand 
that it is the smiting of a friend. So long as you 
refuse to say you did n’t, the supposition is that you 
have robbed a man to whom you were under rather 
heavy obligations.” 

“ Is that Bartrow’s supposition ? ” 

“ He says it is n’t, but 1 ’m afraid the wish is the 
father to the thought : in his case as in — as in that 
of others.” Lansdale added the inclusive in the hope 
that the wound would be the better for probing. 

Jeffard’s laugh was altogether bitter. “‘Give a 
dog a bad name,’ ” he quoted. “ Do you know, I 
fancied Dick would be obstinate enough to stand out 
against the apparent fact ? ” 

“ That is precisely what he has done, and with 
less reason than the most devoted partisan might 
demand. You know you told him that the claim 
was Garvin’s. He would n’t believe the newspaper 
story ; he insisted that you would be able to ‘ square ’ 
yourself, as he phrased it, when you came out.” 

Jeffard was looking past his interlocutor, out and 
beyond to where the farther tables were emptying 
themselves of the late diners. 

“ Yet it is his supposition ; and your own, you 
were going to say. Is it Miss Elliott’s also ? ” 
Lansdale resisted the impulse to rummage again, 
and said : “ I don’t know that — how should I 
know ? But rumor has made the charge, and you 
have not denied it.” 

“I don’t mean to deny it — not even to her. 
But neither have I admitted it.” 


316 


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“My dear Jeffard! aren’t the facts an admis- 
sion? — at least, so long as they stand uncontra- 
dicted.” 

“ Everybody seems to think so, — and I can afPord 
to be indifferent.” 

“ Having the money, you mean ? — possibly. Am 
I to take that as an admission of the facts ? ” 

“ Facts are fixtures, are n’t they ? things not to 
be set up or set aside by admissions or denials. But 
you may take it as you please.” 

Lansdale shook his head as one whose deprecation 
is too large for speech. “ I can’t begin to under- 
stand it, Jeffard, — the motive which could impel 
a man of your convictions, I mean.” 

Jeffard broke forth in revilings. “ What do you 
know about my convictions? What do you know 
about anything in the heart of man ? You have a 
set of formulas which you call types, and into which 
you try to fit all human beings arbitrarily, each 
after his kind. It ’s the merest child’s-play ; a fal- 
lacy based on an assumption. No two men can be 
squared by the same rule ; no two will do the same 
things under exactly similar conditions. Character- 
study is your specialty, I believe ; but you have yet 
to learn that the human atom is an irresponsible 
individuality.” 

“ Oh, no, I have n’t ; I grant you that. But 
logically ” — 

“ Logic has nothing whatever to do with it. It ’s 
ego, pure and unstrained, in most of us ; a sluggish 
river of self, with a quicksand of evil for its bottom.” 

\ 






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317 


Lansdale borrowed a gun of his antagonist, and 
sighted it accurately. 

“ What do you know about humanity as a whole ? 
What do you know about any part of it save your 
own infinitesimal fraction? — which seems to be a 
rather unfair sample.” 

Jeffard confessed judgment and paid the costs. 
“ J don’t know very much about the sample, Lans- 
dale. One time — it was in the sophomore year, I 
believe — I thought I knew my own potentialities. 
But I did n’t. If any one had prophesied then that 
I had it in me to do what I have done, I should 
have demanded a miracle to confirm it.” 

“ But you must justify yourself to yourself,” 
Lansdale persisted. 

“Why must I? That is another of your cut-and- 
dried formulas. So far from recognizing any such 
obligation, I may say that I gave up trying to ac- 
count for myself a long time ago. And if I have 
found it impossible, it is n’t worth while for you to 
try.” 

Lansdale was not the man to bruise his hands 
with much beating upon the barred doors of any 
one’s confidence. So he said, “ I ’m done. It ’s 
between you and your conscience, — if you have n’t 
eliminated that with the other things. But I had 
hoped you ’d see fit to defend yourself. The eternal 
query is sharp enough without the pointing of par- 
ticular instances.” 

Jeffard squared himseK, with his elbows on the 
table. 


318 


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“ Do you want an hypothesis, too ? — as another 
man did? Take this, and make the most of it. 
You knew me and my lacks and havings. You 
knew that I had reached a point at which I would 
have pawned my soul for the wherewithal to pur- 
chase a short hour or two of forgetfulness. Hold 
that picture in your mind, and conceive that a sum- 
mer of unsuccessful prospecting had not changed 
me for better or worse. Is the point of view unob- 
structed ? ” 

“ The point of view is your own, not mine,” Lans- 
dale objected. “ And, moreover, the summer did 
change you, because advancement in some direction 
is an irrefrangible law. But go on.” 

“ I will. This man whom you have in mind was 
suddenly brought face to face with a great tempta- 
tion, — great and subtle. Garvin drove the tunnel 
on the Midas three years ago and abandoned it as 
worthless. It was my curiosity which led to the 
discovery of the gold. It was I who took the sample 
to the assayer and carried the news of the bonanza 
to Garvin. I might have kept the knowledge to 
myself, but I did n’t. Why? do you ask? I don’t 
know — perhaps because it didn’t occur to me. 
What followed Bartrow has told you, but not all. 
Let us assume that the race to Aspen was made in 
good faith; that this man who had put honor and 
good report behind him really meant to stand be- 
tween a drunken fool and the fate he was rushing 

O 

upon. Can you go so far with me ? ” 

Lansdale nodded. He was spellbound, but it was 


THE HELPERS 


319 


the artist in him and not the man who hung breath- 
less upon the edge of expectancy. 

“ V ery well ; now for the crux. This man knelt 
behind a locked door and heard himself execrated 
by the man he was trying to save ; heard the first 
kindly impulse he had yielded to in months distorted 
into a desperate plan to rob the cursing maniac. Is 
it past belief that he crept away from the locked 
door and sat down to ask himself in hot resentment 
why he should go on ? Is it not conceivable that he 
should have begun to give ear to the plea of self- 
preservation ? — to say to himself that if the maniac 
were no better than a lost man it was no reason that 
the treasure should be lost also ? ” 

It was altogether conceivable, and Lansdale nodded 
again. Jefiard found a cigar and went on while he 
was clipping the end of it. 

“ But that was not all. Picture this man at the 
crumbling point of resolution tiptoeing to the door 
to listen again. He has heard enough to convince 
him that the miracle of fortune will be worse than 
wasted upon the drunken witling. Now he is to 
hear that the besotted fool has already transferred 
whatever right he had in the Midas to the two de- 
spoilers ; signed a quitclaim, sold his miracle for a 
drink or two of whiskey, more or less. Are you 
listening ? ” 

Lansdale moistened his lips with the lees of the 
tea in the empty cup, and said, “ Yes ; go on.” 

Jeffard sat back and lighted the cigar. “That’s 
all,” he said curtly. “ It ’s enough, is n’t it ? You 


320 


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knew the man a year ago ; you think you know him 
now. What would he do ? ” 

If the hypothesis were intended to be a test of 
blind loyalty it missed the mark by just so much as 
the student of his kind must hold himself aloof from 
sympathetic entanglements. Lansdale weighed the 
evidence, not as a partisan, but rather as an onlooker 
whose point of view was wholly extrinsic. 

“ I understand,” said he ; “ the man would do as 
you have done. It ’s your own affair. As I said a 
few minutes ago, it is between you and your private 
conscience. And I dare say if the facts were known 
the public conscience would n’t condemn you. Don’t 
you want to' use the columns of the ‘ Coloradoan ’ ? ” 

J effard’s negative was explosive. “ Do you write 
me down a fool as well as a knave? Damn the 
public conscience ! ” 

“ Don’t swear ; I was only offering to turn the 
stone for you if you ’ve anything to grind.” 

“ I have n’t. If I wanted the consent of the 
majority I could buy it, — buy it if I had shot the 
maniac instead of letting him shoot me.” 

“ Possibly ; and yet you could n’t buy any fraction 
of it that is worth having,” Lansdale asserted, with 
conviction. “ There are a few people left who have 
not bowed the head in the house of Rimmon.” 

The cynical hardness went out of Jeffard’s eye 
and lip, and for the first time since the proletary’s 
reincarnation, Lansdale fancied he got a brief glimpse 
of the man he had known in the day of sincerity. 

“ A few, yes ; the Elliotts, father and daughter. 


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321 


for two, you would say. I wonder if you could help 
me there.” 

“ To their good opinion ? — my dear Jeffard, I ’m 
no professional conscience-keeper ! ” 

“ No, I did n’t mean that. What I had in mind 
is a much simpler thing. A year ago Miss Elliott 
gave me of her abundance. She meant if as a gift, 
though I made it a loan and repaid the principal — 
when I was able to. But I am still in her debt. 
Measured by consequences, which are the only true 
interest-table, the earnings of her small investment 
are hardly to be computed in dollars and cents. 
Naturally, she won’t take that view of it, but that 
does not cancel my obligation. Will you help me 
to discharge it ? They need money.” 

Lansdale let the appeal simmer in the pot of re- 
flection. His inclination was to refuse to be drawn 
into any such entanglement ; but the opportunity to 
lessen by ever so little the burdens of the woman he 
loved was not to be lightly set aside. None the 
less, the thing seemed impossible. 

“I’m afraid it ’s too big for me, Jeffard ; I 
should n’t know how to go about it. Don’t mis- 
understand me. I should n’t stick at the necessary 
equivocations ; but if you know Miss Elliott you 
must know that Machiavelli himself couldn’t be 
insincere with her. She would have to be told the 
truth, and ” — 

He left the sentence incomplete, and Jeffard took 
it up at the break. 

“ And if she should acknowledge my obligation — 


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whicli she would not — she would refuse to be reim- 
bursed out of Garvin’s money. That is why I 
have n’t sent her a note with a check in it. Will 
you have another cup of tea ? ” 

Lansdale took the query as a dismissal of the 
subject and pushed back his chair. On the way out 
they passed a late incomer; a florid man, with a 
nervous step and the eye of preoccupation. He 
nodded to Lansdale in passing, and Jeflard said, 
“ Do you know him ? ” 

“Yes; it’s Finchly, — John Murray’s man of 
business.” 

JefPard had apparently relapsed into*the deeper 
depths of cynicism again. 

“ Yes, I know. That ’s the charitable euphemism. 
Murray is a day laborer, transmogrified by a lucky 
strike into a millionaire. He does n’t know enough 
to write his own name, much less how to keep a 
great fortune from dissolving, so he hires a manager. 
It was a happy thought. What does Finchly get ? ” 

Lansdale laughed. “ A good living, doubtless.” 

“ Of course ; and much more, with the pickings. 
But there is a salary which is supposed to be the 
consideration, is n’t there ? ” 

“ Oh, yes ; and the figure of it varies with the 
imagination of the gossips from ten to fifty thousand 
a year.” 

Jeffard stopped to relight his cigar, and Lansdale 
fancied that the Finchly query went out with the 
spent match. But Jeffard revived it a square far- 
ther on. 


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323 


“ Suppose we assume, for the sake of argument, 
that the man has a conscience. How much could he 
justly take for the service rendered ? ” 

They were at the entrance of the “Coloradoan” 
building, and Lansdale took out his notebook and 
made a memorandum. 

“ That is good for a column,” he said ; “ ‘ The 
Moral Hesponsibility of Millionaire-Managers.’ I ’ll 
answer your question later, when I ’ve had tune to 
think it over.” 

“But, seriously,” Jeffard insisted. “Is it worth 
ten thousand a year ? — or the half of it ? The 
man is only a cashier, — a high-class accountant at 
best.” 

“ Finchly is much more than that ; he is Murray’s 
brain as well as his pen-hand. But if he were only 
a money-counter, a money-counter’s salary would be 
enough j say two or three thousand a year, to be 
liberal.” 

Jeffard nodded and was turning away ; had in 
fact taken three steps streetward, when he came 
back to return to the subject dropped at the supper 
table as though there had been no hiatus. 

“ You were going to say she would refuse to take 
Garvin’s money, and I said it for you. Would it 
make it any easier if I can assure you that the 
money I shall put in your hands is honestly mine ? — 
that James Garvin has no claim, ethical or otherwise, 
upon it? Take time to consider it, — with an eye 
to Miss Elliott’s present needs rather than to my 
havings or wishes in the matter. 


324 


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Lansdale was off his guard, and the human side 
of him came uppermost in the swift rejoinder, — 
“ Then you did n’t tell me the whole truth ? The 
Midas is honestly yours, after all?” 

Jeffard turned away and snapped the ash from 
his cigar. “ Don’t jump at conclusions,” he said. 
“ It ’s always safer to go on voting with the majority. 
What I said has nothing to do with the story of the 
man and his temptation ; but the meanest laborer is 
worthy of his hire. I worked all winter with pick 
and shovel in the Midas. Good-night.” 


CHAPTER XXIX 

It was early in June when the pneumatic drill 
in the Little Myriad was smashed by a premature 
blast, and the master of the mine was constrained 
to make a flying trip to Denver to replace it. As 
a matter of course, if not, indeed, of necessity, Myra 
went with him. They traveled by the night train, 
breakfasted on canned viands out of the Pullman 
buffet, and so took Constance by surprise. 

Myra had projects in view, some Utopian and 
others more Utopian, with her relatives for nuclei ; 
and when Richard the untactful had been sent 
about his machinery business, she settled down for 
a persuasive day with Constance. Now Constance 
had been taken unawares, but she was of those who 
flght best at a disadvantage, and the end of the day 
found the Utopian projects still in air, being held 
in suspension by an obstinate young person who 
steadily refused to make of herself a vessel meet for 
condolence and cousinly beneficence. 

“ It ’s no use, cuzzy dear ; you shall have an op- 
tion on the help stock when there is any for sale, 
but at present there are no quotations.” 

Thus Connie, at the very end of the persuasive 
day. Upon which the young wife, with patience 
outwearing or outworn, retorts smartly : — 


326 


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“ I suppose you think it ’s heroic — your living like 
this ; but it is n’t. It is just plain poverty pride, 
which is all weU enough to keep the crowd out, but 
which is simply wicked when it makes you shut the 
door in our faces. Think of it — you living here in 
three rooms at the top of a block when the Myriad 
has begun to pay dividends ! I did n’t mean to tell 
you just yet, but Dick is going to buy back the 
Colfax Avenue house, and it shall stand empty tiU 
doomsday if you won’t go and live in it.” 

In times not long past Connie would have re- 
turned railing for railing — with interest added ; 
but the reproachful day had been no less trying 
to her than to Myra, and the poverty fight — and 
some others — were sore upon her. Hence her dis- 
claimer was of courageous meekness, with a smile 
of loving appreciation to pave the way. 

“ I hope Dick will do no such preposterous thing 
— unless you want it for yourselves. You know it 
would be quite out of the question for us to take it. 
Or to do anything but make the best of what has 
happened,” she added. 

Myra was standing at a window, looking down 
into the street where the early dusk was beginning 
to prick out the point-like coruscations of the arc- 
lights. There was that in Connie’s eyes which beck- 
oned tears to eyes sympathetic; and she found it 
easier to go on with her back turned upon the room 
and its other occupant. 

“ To make the best of it, yes ; but you are not 
making the best of it. Or, if you are, the best is mis- 


THE HELPERS 


327 


erably bad. You are looking thin and wretched, as 
if — as if you did n’t get enough to eat.” 

There was a touch of the old-time resilience in 
Connie’s laugh. “ How can you tell when you ’re 
not looking at me ? Indeed, it has n’t come to that 
yet. We have enough, and a little to spare for 
those who have less.” 

Myra had been searching earnestly all day for 
some little rift into which the wedge of helpfulness 
might be driven, and here was an opening — of 
the vicarious sort. 

“ W on’t you let me be your purseholder for 
those who have less, Connie ? That is the very 
least you can do.” , 

Constance willed it thankfully. After the try- 
ing day of refusals it was grateful to find something 
that could be conceded. 

“I believe I told you once that I wouldn’t be 
your proxy in that way, did n’t I ? But I will, now. 
You are so much better than your theories, Myra.” 

Myra left the window at that, wrote a generous 
check before the concession should have time to 
shrink in the cooling, and then went over to sit on 
the denim-covered lounge with her arm around her 
cousin’s waist. 

“ Now that you have begun to be reasonable, 
won’t you go a step farther, Connie, dear ? I know 
there are troubles, — lots of them besides the pinch- 
ing. Can’t you lean on me just a little bit ? I do 
so want to help you.” 

Connie did it literally, with her face on Myra’s 


328 


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shoulder and a sob at the catching of her breath. 
Myra let her take her own time, as a judicious com- 
forter will, and when the words came they wrought 
themselves into a confession. 

“ Oh, Myra, I thought I was so strong, and I^m 
not ! ” she wept. “ The bullet in a gun has n’t less 
to say about where it shall be sent. I said it was n’t 
the pinch, but it is — or part of it is. Poppa has 
set his heart upon trying the mountains again, old 
as he is, and he can’t go because — because there 
is n’t money enough to outfit him with what he 
could carry on his back ! ” 

“ And you would have let me go without telling 
me I ” said Myra reproachfully. “ He shall have a 
whole pack train of ‘ grub stake,’ — is that w^hat I 
should say ? — and you shall come and stay with us 
while he is away. Consider that a trouble past, and 
tell me some more. You don’t know how delicious 
it is to be permitted to pose as a small god in a car.” 

“ Yes, I do,” Connie responded, out of a heartful 
of similar ecstasies. “ But it is n’t a trouble past ; 
he won’t let you do it. Everybody has been offer- 
ing to lend him money, and he won’t take it.” 

“ He will have to take it from me,” said Myra, 
with prompt decision. “ I ’ll make him. And when 
he goes, you will come to us, won’t you ? ” 

Constance looked up with a smile shining through 
the tears. “You’re good, Myra, just like Dick! 
But I can’t, you know. I must stay here.” 

“ Why must you? ” To the querist there seemed 
to be sufficiently good reasons, from the point of 


THE HELPERS 


329 


view of the proprieties, for setting Connie’s decision 
aside mandatorily, but Myra had grown warier if not 
wiser in her year of cousin-kenning. 

“ There are reasons, — duties which I must not 
shirk.” 

“ Are they namable ? ” 

“ Yes ; Margaret is the name of one of them.” 

Myra’s disapproval found vent in gentle foot- 
tappings. To the moderately compassionate on- 
looker it would seem that Constance had long since 
filled that measure of responsibility, — filled and 
heaped it to overflowing. But again the experienced 
one was discreet. 

“ As Dick would put it, you have ‘ angeled ’ Mar- 
garet for a year and more. Is n’t she yet able to 
stand alone ? ” 

Connie’s answer was prompt and decisive. “ Quite 
as well able as the best of us would be under similar 
conditions.” 

“ I would n’t make it conditional ; but we ’ve 
never been able to keep step in that journey. Why 
is Margaret’s case exceptional ? ” 

“ Did I say it was ? It is n’t. She is just one 
of any number of poor girls who are trying to live 
honestly, with the barriers of innocence aU down 
and an overwhelming temptation always beckoning.” 

Myra shook her head. “ That is making tempta- 
tion a constraint, when it can never be more than a 
lure. I must confess I can’t get far enough away 
from the conventional point of view to understand 
how a young woman like Margaret, who has been 


330 


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lifted and carried and set fairly upon her feet, could 
be tempted to go back to the utter misery and 
degradation of the other life.” 

Constance spoke first to the sophism, and then to 
the particular instance. 

“ It is not true that temptation is always a lure. 
It is oftener a constraint. And you say you can’t 
understand. It is terribly simple. They sin first 
for a thing which they mistake for love ; but after 
that it is for bread and meat, and surcease from toil 
which has become a mere frenzied struggle to keep 
body and soul together. You don’t know what it is 
to be poor, Myra, — with the barriers down. Have 
you any idea how much Margaret earned last week, 
working steadily the six days and deep into the 
nights ? ” 

“ Oh, not very much, I suppose. But her neces- 
sities are not large.” 

“ Are they not ? They are as large as yours or 
mine. She must eat and drink and have a bed to 
sleep on and clothes to cover her. And to provide 
these she was paid three dollars and eighty-five cents 
for her week’s work ; and two dollars of that had to 
go for rent. Is the temptation a lure or a constraint 
in her case ? ” 

Myra was silenced, if not convinced, and she went 
back to the fact existent with sympathy no more 
than seemingly aloof. 

“ You hinted at Margaret’s peculiar besetment in 
one of your letters. Is that what you have to stay 
and fight ? ” 


THE HELPERS 


331 


Constance nodded assent. 

“ I have been hoping you were mistaken. Dick 
is still loyally incredulous. Is n’t there a chance 
that you or Tommie, or both of you, have taken too 
much for granted ? ” 

Connie’s “ No ” was almost inaudible, and there 
was chastened sorrow in her voice when she went on 
to tell how Tommie had seen Jeffard and Margaret 
together, not once, but many times ; how the man 
was always persuading, and the woman, reluctant at 
first, was visibly yielding ; how within a week Tom- 
mie had seen Jeffard give her money. 

“ And she took it ? ” Myra queried. 

“ She did n’t want to take it. Tommie says she 
almost fought with him to make him take it back. 
But he would n’t.” 

Myra’s sympathy circled down, but it alighted 
upon Connie. “You poor dear! after all your 
loving-kindnesses and helpings I It ’s miserable ; but 
you can’t do anything if you stay.” 

“Yes, I can. I couldn’t stay alone, of course, 
and she will give up her room and come here to live 
with me. That wiU give me a better hold on her 
than I have now.” 

“ But if you had a hundred eyes you could n’t 
safeguard her against her will I ” 

“ No ; but it is n’t her will, — it ’s his. And he 
will not come here.” 

Myra’s brows went together in a little frown of 
righteous indignation. “ I should hope not, the 
wretch ! You were right, after all, Connie, and I ’ll 


332 


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retract all the charitable things Dick wanted me to 
say. He is too despicable ’’ — 

It was Connie’s hand on the accusing lips that 
cut short the indignant arraignment. 

“ Please don’t ! ” she pleaded. “ He is all that 
you can say or think, but my ears are weary with 
my own repetitions of it.” 

Myra took the hand from her lips and held it fast 
while she tried to search her cousin’s face. But the 
gathering dusk had mounted from the level of 
the street to that of the upper room, and it baffled 
the eye-questioning. 

“ Connie Elliott ! I more than half believe ” — 
She stopped abruptly, as if there had been some 
dumb protest of the imprisoned hand, and then went 
on with a swift change from accusation to gentle 
reproach. “I believe you have only just begun to 
teU me your troubles, — and I ’ve been with you all 
day ! What are some more of them ? ” 

“ I have told you the worst of them, — or at least 
that part of them which makes it impossible for me 
to go away. But there is another reason why I 
ought to stay.” 

“ Is that one namable, too ? ” 

“ Yes ; but perhaps you won’t understand. And 
you will be sure to tell me it is n’t proper. I think 
one of Mr. Lansdale’s few pleasures is his cominer 
here.” 

“ Few remaining pleasures, you would say, if you 
were not too tender-hearted. Is it wise, Connie ? ” 

“ Why not ? — if it is a comfort to him ? ” 


THE HELPERS 


333 


Myra hesitated, not because she had nothing to 
say, but because she knew not how to say the thing 
demanded. 

“ You have n’t given me leave to be quite frank 
with you, Connie. But it seems to me that your 
kindness in this case is — is mistaken kindness.” 

Constance’s rejoinder was merely an underthought 
slipping the leash. “ It is not to be expected that 
any one would understand,” she said. 

“ But I do understand,” Myra asserted, this time 
with better confidence. “ I ’m not supposed to have 
the slightest inkling of your feelings, — you ’ve never 
lisped a word to me, — but Mr. Lansdale’s motives 
are plain enough to be read in the dark. If he 
were a well man he would have asked you to marry 
him long ago.” 

“ Do you think so ? ” said Constance half absently. 
“ I ’m not so sure about that. He is far away from 
home and wretchedly ill ; and he has many acquain- 
tances and few real friends.” 

“ But he loves you,” Myra persisted. 

“ He has never said anything like that to me.” 

“ It is quite possible that he never will, in view 
of the insurmountable obstacle.” 

“His ill-health, you mean? Myra, dear, you 
surely know love better than that — now. Love is 
the one thing which will both sow and reap even in 
the day when the heavens are of brass and the earth 
is a barren desert.” 

The under-roar of traffic in the street made the 
silence in the upper room more effective by contrast ; 


334 


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like tke sense of isolation wliich is often sharpest 
in a jostling throng. Myra rose and went to the 
window again, coming back presently to stand over 
Constance and say, “ I suppose it is ordained that 
you should be a mart3rr to somebody or something, 
Connie, dear ; and when the time comes I ’m not 
going to say you nay, because I think you will be 
happier that way. If Mr. Lansdale should be 
tempted to say that which I am sure he has deter- 
mined not to say, is your answer ready?” 

Connie’s hands were clasped over one knee, and 
the poise was of introspective beatitude. But the 
answer to Myra’s query was not irrelevant. 

“ He is the truest of gentlemen ; what would your 
answer be, Myra ? ” 

It was the young wife in Myra Bartrow, that 
precious bit of clay as yet plastic under the hand of 
the master-potter, that prompted the steadfast reply. 

“ If I loved him as I ought, I should pray God to 
make me unselfish enough to say yes, Connie.” 

“ So should I,” said Constance simply ; and Myra 
made the fighting of the lamp an excuse for the 
diversion which the three soft-spoken words de- 
manded. And when she went bac'k to the matter of 
fact, she touched lightly upon what she conceived to 
be a wound yet far from healing. 

“ You have silenced me, Connie, but I can at least 
provide for the contingency. If the event shapes 
itself so that you are free to come to us, don’t let 
Margaret stand in the way. Bring her with you, 
and we ’ll find room and work for her.” 


THE HELPERS 


335 


Connie’s eyes were shining, but there was a loving 
smile struggling with the tears. “ I said you were 
good, like Dick, Myra, dear, and I can’t put it any 
stronger. If I don’t take you at your word, it will 
not be for anything you have left unsaid. Is n’t 
that Dick coming ? ” 

It was. There was a double step in the corridor, 
and Bartrow came in with Stephen Elliott. Since 
the battle persuasive with the daughter had kept her 
single-eyed, Myra had had but brief glimpses of the 
father during the day; but now she remarked that 
his step was a little less firmly planted than it had 
been in that holiday time when he had played the 
unwonted part of escort in ordinary to two young 
women who had dragged him whither they would, — 
and whither he would not. Moreover, there was 
the look of the burden-bearer in his eyes, though 
their fire was undimmed; and an air of belated 
sprightliness in his manner which went near to 
Myra’s heart, because she knew it came of conscious 
effort. These jottings and others, the added stoop 
of the shoulders, and the lagging half-step to the 
rear in entering, as of one who may no longer keep 
pace with younger men, Myra made while Dick was 
timing the dash for their train. 

“ Thirty-five minutes more, and we ’ll quit you, — 
say, Uncle Steve, that clock of yours is slow, — ■ 
that ’s half an hour for supper, and five minutes for 
the yum-yums at the car-step. Gear yourselves, you 
two, and we ’ll aU go and make a raid on the supper- 
room at the station.” 


336 


THE HELPERS 


“ Indeed, we sha’n’t,” said Connie, in hospitable 
protest. “You are going to eat bread and butter 
and drink strong tea on the top floor of the Thorson 
Block. I ’ve had the water cooking for an hour, and 
you sha’n’t make me waste gasoline in any such way.” 

Dick would have argued the point with her ; was, 
in fact, beginnings the counter-protest, when Myra 
stopped him. 

“ Of course we T1 stay,” she assented. “ You go 
with Connie and help make the tea, Dick. I have n’t 
begun to have a visit with Uncle Stephen yet.” 

Bartrow gave up the fight and was led captive of 
the small one to the room across the corridor which 
served as a kitchen. Left alone with his sister’s 
daughter, Stephen Elliott had a sudden return of the 
haltingnesses which the Philadelphia niece, newly 
arrived, used to inspire ; but Myra asked only for 
an acquiescent listener. 

“ Uncle Stephen,” she began, pinning him in the 
lounge-corner from which there was no possibility of 
escape, “ I ’ve been wanting to get at you all day, and 
I was afraid you were n’t going to give me a chance. 
You have ‘grub-staked’ a lot of people, first and 
last, have n’t you ? ” 

The old man eyed her suspiciously for a moment, 
and then evidently banished the suspicion as a thing 
unworthy. 

“ Why, yes ; I have staked a good few of them, 
first and last, as you say.” 

“ I knew it, and I wanted to ask a question. How 
much money did you usually give them ? ” 


THE HELPERS 


337 


The suspicion was well lulled by this ; and finding 
himself upon familiar ground, the pioneer went into 
details. 

“ That depended a good deal upon the other fellow. 
Some of them — most of ’em, I was going to sav — 
could n’t be trusted with money at all, and I ’d go 
buy them an outfit and stay with them till they got 
out o’ range of the saloons and green tables.” 

“ But when you found one whom you could trust, 
how much money did you give him ? I’m not idly 
curious ; I know a man who wants to go prospecting, 
and I have promised to ‘ stake ’ him.” 

The suspicion raised its head again, and was 
promptly clubbed into submission. Some one of 
the Myriad men wanted to try his luck, and he had 
“ braced ” the wife rather than the husband. So 
thought the pioneer, and made answer accordingly. 

“ I would n’t monkey with it, if I were you, Myra ; 
leastwise, not without letting Dick into it. He ’s 
right on the ground, and he ’ll tell you how much 
you ’d ought to put up ; or — what ’s more likely — 
if you ought n’t to teU the fellow to stick to his day- 
pay in the mine.” 

“ Dick knows,” said Myra, anticipating the exact 
truth by some brief hour or so, “ and he ’s quite 
willing. But you know Dick ; if I should leave it 
with him he would give the man aU he had and go 
and borrow for himself. I want a good sober con- 
servative opinion, — not too conservative, you know, 
but just about what you would need if you were go- 
ing out yourself.” 


338 


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Elliott became dubitantly reflective, being divided 
between a desire to spare Myra’s purse and a dis- 
position born of fellow-feelings to make it as easy as 
might be for the unknown beneficiary. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, at length. “If 
the fellow is going by himself, he won’t need much ; 
but if he takes a partner it ’ll just about double the 
stake. Is he going to play it alone ? ” 

Myra could see through the open door into the 
adjoining room, and she saw Connie bringing in 
the tea. Time was growing precious, if the con- 
clusion were not to be tripped up by an inter- 
ruption. 

“ I suppose he ’ll take a partner ; they always do, 
don’t they ? Anyway, I want to make it enough so 
that he can if he chooses. Please tell me how 
much.” 

“ Well, if he knows how to cut the corners and 
how to outfit so as to make the most of what he has, 
he ’d ought to be able to do it on a couple of hun- 
dred or so. But I don’t know if that ain’t pretty 
liberal,” he added, as if upon second thought. 

Myra went quickly to the table under the lamp, 
and wrote upon a slip of paper. Elliott thought 
she was making a note of her information ; and 
when she put the check into his hands he took it 
mechanically. But her hurried explanation drove 
the firing-pin of intelligence. 

“ It ’s for you — you are the man. Uncle Stephen ; 
and if it is n’t enough, it ’s your own fault.” She 
said it with one eye on the two in the next room. 


THE HELPERS 


339 


and with nerves taut-braced for the shock of refusal. 
The shock came promptly. 

“Oh — say — here! Myra, girl; I can’t take 
this from you I ” He was on his feet, trying to give 
hack the check; and as she eluded liim he followed 
her about the room, protesting as he went. “ It ’s 
just like you to offer it, but I can’t, don’t you see ? 
I ’ll rope soniebody else in ; somebody that knows 
the chances. Here, take it back, — I’m getting 
pretty old, and just as like as not I won’t find 
anything worth assaying. Come, now; you be a 
good girl, and ” — 

He had driven her into a corner, and it was time 
for the couj) de main. So she put her arms about 
his neck and her face on his shoulder, and if the 
attack pathetic were no more than a clever bit of 
feigning, Stephen Elliott was none the wiser. 

“I — I ’d like to know what I have done I ” she 
quavered. “ You ’d take it from a stranger — you 
said you would — and you’ve made me just the 
same as your own daughter, and now you wo — won’t 
let me do the first little thing I’ve ever had a 
chance to do ! ” 

There were more strong solvents of a similar 
nature in reserve, but they were not needed. The 
good old man was helplessly soluble in any woman’s 
tears, real or invented ; and his fine resolution 
melted and the bones of it became as water. 

“ There, there, little girl , don’t you take on like 
that. I’U keep it. See? I’ve chucked it right 
down into the bottom of my pocket” — he was 


340 


THE HELPERS 


stroking her hair and otherwise gentling her as if 
she were a hurt child. “ Don’t you fret a little bit. 
I ’ll spend it — every last cent of it — just the way 
you want me to. You must n’t cry another tear ; 
Dick ’ll think I ’ve been abusing you, and he ’ll fire 
the old uncle out of one of these high windows. 
Have n’t you got any handkerchief ? ” 

Connie and Dick were at the door, announcing 
the bread and butter and tea, and Myra’s handker- 
chief became a convenient mask for the moment. 
A less simple-hearted man than the old pioneer 
might have suspected the sincerity of such tears as 
may be wiped away at a word, leaving no trace 
behind them ; but Elliott was too child-like to know 
aught of the fine art of dissimulation, and he took 
Myra’s sudden return to cheerfulness as a tribute to 
his own astuteness in yielding a point at the critical 
moment. 

At the tea-table they were all more or less hilari- 
ous, each having somewhat to conceal from the 
others ; and even Bartrow was made to feel the 
thinness of the ice upon which the trivialities were 
skating. Much to Connie’s surprise, the tactless 
one developed unsuspected resources of adroitness 
in keeping the table-talk at concert-pitch of levity ; 
and she forgave him when he was brutal enough to 
make a jest of the simple meal, giving the bread 
and butter a new name with each asking, and accus- 
ing her of being in league with the commissary 
department of the sleeping-car company. It spoke 
volumes for Dick’s growth in perspicacity that he 


THE HELPERS 


341 


was able to discern the keen edge of the crisis 
without having actually seen the stone upon which 
it had been whetted ; and in the midst of her own 
fencings with the tensities, Constance found time to 
wonder how Myra had wrought even the beginning 
of such a miracle in the downright one. 

In such resolute ignorings of the moving realities 
the supper interval was safely outworn ; but when, 
at the end of it, Dick dragged out his watch and 
called “time,” Constance found her tea too hot, 
and the drinking of it brought tears to her eyes. 
Whereupon the brutal one made an exaggerated 
pretense of sympathy, offering her a handkerchief ; 
and the laugh saved them all until the good-bys 
were said, and the guests, with EUiott to speed their 
parting, had gone to the station. 

Constance stood in the empty corridor until the 
farther stair ceased to echo their footsteps. The 
day-long strain was off at last, and she meant to go 
quickly and clear off the table and wash the supper 
dishes, to the end that the reaction might not over- 
whelm her. But on the way she stopped at the 
little square table in the larger room and took a 
letter from its hiding place at the back of a framed 
photograph. It was a double inclosure in an out- 
side envelope which bore the business card of a well 
known legal firm; and the wrapping of the inner 
envelope was a note on the firm’s letter-head, stat- 
ing in terse phrase that the inclosed letter had been 
found under the door of an unoccupied house in 
Colfax Avenue by the writer in the early summer 


342 


THE HELPERS 


of the previous year ; that it had been mislaid ; and 
that it was now forwarded with many regrets for its 
imintentional suppression. 

Constance read the note mechanically, as she had 
read it the day before when the postman had 
brought it. It explained nothing more than the 
mere fact of delay, but she understood. The writer 
of the lost letter, or his messenger, had thrust it 
under the door of the wrong house. 

She laid the note aside and tilted the envelope to 
let a coin fall into her palm. It was a double-eagle 
piece, little worn, but the memories which clustered 
about its giving and taking seemed to duU the lus- 
tre of the yellow metal. It was the price of sorrow- 
ful humiliation, no whit less to the man who had 
taken than to the woman who had given it. She 
put it that way in an inflexible determination to be 
just. Truly, his acceptance of it was a thing to be 
remembered with cheek-burnings of shame ; but she 
would not hold herself blameless. In the light of 
that which his letter disclosed, her charitable im- 
pulse became a sword to slay the last remnant of 
manly pride and seK-respect — if any remnant there 
were. 

She opened the letter and re-read it to the end, 
going back from the scarcely legible signature to a 
paragraph in the midst of it that bade fair to grave 
itself ineffaceably upon her heart. 

“ You may remember that I said I could n’t tell 
you the truth, because it concerns a woman. When 
I add that the woman is yourself, you will under* 


THE HELPERS 


343 


stand. I love you ; I think I have been loving you 
ever since that evening which you said we were 
to forget — the evening at the theatre. Strangely 
enough, my love for you is n’t strong in the strength 
which saves. I went from you that night when 
you had bidden me God-speed at Mrs. Calmaine’s, 
and within the hour I was once more a penniless 
vagabond. 

“ When you were trying to help me this after- 
noon, I was trying to keep from saying that which 
I could never have a right to say. You pressed me 
very hard in your sweet innocence ”... 

She sat down and the letter sKpped from her 
fingers. The hurt was a year in the past, but time 
had not yet dulled the pain of it. Not to any 
human soul, nor yet to her own heart, had she 
admitted the one living fact which stood unshaken ; 
which would stand, like some polished corner-stone 
of a ruined temple, when all else should have 
crumbled into dust. For which cause she sat with 
clasped hands and eyes that saw not; eyes that 
were still deep wells and clear, but brimming with 
the bitter waters of a fountain which flows only for 
those whose loss is irreparable. And while she wept, 
the sorrowful under-thought slipped into speech. 

“ He calls it love, but it could n’t have been that. 
He says it was n’t strong in the strength that saves ; 
and love is always mighty to succor the weak- 
hearted. I would have believed in him — I did 
believe in him, only I didn’t know how to help. 
But no one could help when he didn’t believe in 


344 


THE HELPERS 


himself ; and now he is just drifting, with the cruel 
sword of opportunity loose in its scabbard, and all 
the unspeakable things dragging him whithersoever 
they will. . . . And he meant to end it all when 
he wrote this letter ; I know he did. That would 
have been terrible ; but it would have been braver 
than to go on to robbery, and unfaith, and — and 
now to this last pitiless iniquity. Oh, I can’t let it 
go on to that ! — not if I have to go and plead with 
him for the sake of that which he once thought 
was — love.” She went down upon her knees with 
her face hidden in the chair-cushion, and the uncon- 
scious monologue became a passionate beseeching: 
“ O God, help me to be strong and steadfast, that 
I may not fail when I come to stand between these 
two ; for Thou knowest the secrets of the heart and 
all its weakness ; and Thou knowest ” — 


CHAPTER XXX 


The Bartrows, with Stephen Elliott to expedite 
their outsetting, caught their train with nothing to 
spare ; and while the goggle-eyed switch-lamps were 
still flashing past the windows of the sleeping-car, 
Myra settled herself comfortably in her comer of 
the section and demanded the day’s accounting. 

Bartrow was mmmaging in the hand-bag for his 
traveling-cap, and he looked up with a most trans- 
parent affectation of surprise. 

“ Hah ? Was n’t I supposed to be chasing around 
all day trying to buy a rock-drill ? ” 

Myra ignored the skilless parry and thrust home. 
“ Don’t tease,” she said. “ You did beautifully at 
the supper-table, and I am quite sure Connie did n’t 
suspect. But I want to know what has happened.” 

Bartrow laughed good - naturedly. “ Same old 
window-pane for you to look through, am I not? 
It ’s lucky for me that I ’m a rattling good fellow, 
with nothing particular inside of me to be ashamed 
of.” He was thumbing a collection of pocket-worn 
papers, and presently handed her a crisp bill of 
exchange for five hundred and forty-five dollars. 
“ What do you think of that for one of the happen- 
ings ? ” 

She read the figure of it and the date. “ I don’t 
understand,” she said. “ Where did you get it ? ” 


346 


THE HELPERS 


“ You would n’t guess in a thousand years. It ’s 
the money I borrowed for Jeffard one fine morning 
last fall, with hank interest to date.” 

“ Then you have seen him ? ” 

“ Saw him, felt of his hand, and went to luncheon 
with him.” 

“ Dick ! And you really had the courage to ask 
him for this ? ” 

Bartrow’s smile was a grimace. “ Don’t you sit 
there and tempt me to lie about it. You know 
what a fool I am with a debtor. Fortunately, I 
did n’t have to ask ; it came about as most things do 
in this world — click ! buzz ! boom ! and your infer- 
nal machine has exploded. We cannoned against 
each other as I was going into the bank to get the 
money for the machinery man. After we ’d said 
‘ Hello,’ and shook hands, Jelfard went in with me. 
On the way out the cashier stopped us. ‘ Mr. J ef- 
fard,’ says he, ‘your personal account has a credit 
of five hundred dollars which does n’t appear in the 
deposits. If you ’U let me have your book I ’ll 
enter it.’ ‘A credit? — of five hundred dollars? 
I don’t understand,’ says Jeffard. ‘ It ’s all right,’ 
says the cashier. ‘ It came from the Carbonate 
City National, in Leadville. Did n’t they notify 
you?’ ‘No,’ says Jeffard; ‘ it must be a mistake. 
I had no credit in Leadville.’ All this time the 
cashier was digging into his pigeonholes. ‘ You 
must have had,’ says he. ‘ I can’t put my hand on 
their letter, but as I recall it, they said the money 
was a remittance made by you sometime last year to 


THE HELPERS 


347 


cover a promissory note. When it reached them the 
note had matured and had been lifted. They have 
kept your money a good while, but they claim not 
to have known your address.’ ” 

Myra was listening with something more than 
curiosity. 

“ What did Mr. Jelfard say? ” she asked. 

“ He looked a good deal more than he said ; and 
what he said was rather queer. When he had 
pulled me a little aside, he lit a cigar and offered 
me one, as cool as ice. ‘ Of course, you ’ll under- 
stand that this was all prearranged between Mr. 
Holburn and myself,’ says he. ‘It would be too 
great a tax upon your credulity to ask you to 
believe that it is merely a coincidence ; that I really 
did send the money to the Leadville bank to lift 
that note months ago.’ I said No, and meant it ; 
and he went over to the exchange window and made 
out a check and bought that draft. But after- 
ward I could have kicked him for making that 
suggestion. I could n’t break away from it to save 
my life, and it stuck to me straight through to the 
finish.” 

“ But you went to luncheon with him afterward. 
Didn’t he explain? ” 

“ Not a word. I tried my level best to pull the 
thing out of the hole two or three times, but it was 
buried too deep for me. And somehow that idiotic 
sneer of his seemed to color everythmg he said. 
He seemed to take it for granted that I ’d been set- 
ting him down all these months for a scalawag, and 


348 


THE HELPERS 


everything I could say got twisted into a slap. We 
worried through the meal, and the cigars after it, 
in some sort of thankless fashion ; but I would n’t 
do it again for a farm.” 

Myra became reflectively thoughtful, and with the 
jarring of the car the bit of money paper fell to the 
floor. Dick recovered it, put it away, and waited 
patiently for her comment. When it came it was 
no more than a leading question. 

“ What do you make of it, Dick ? ” 

“ I don’t know what to make of it. If I could 
break away from all the things I used to know 
about him, I should say he acts like a man who has 
done something to make him declare war upon 
himself, and — as a natural consequence — upon 
everybody else. He seems to be ready to fight at 
the drop of the hat, and that ’s a bad symptom.” 

“It is a symptom of a guilty conscience, is n’t 
it? ” 

Bartrow did not answer at once. To speak by 
the fact was to admit that all his loyal upholdings 
of Jeffard had been spent upon an unworthy object, 
and he was reluctant in just proportion to his loy- 
alty. But the fact was large — too large to be 
overleaped. 

“ It is a symptom, yes ; and I ’m beginning to be 
afraid it’s a true one in Jeffard’s case. I didn’t 
find a soft spot in him anywhere till we came to 
speak of Lansdale.” 

“ They are still friends ? ” 

“ Y — es, in a way ; a sort of give-and-take way. 


THE HELPERS 


349 


Lansdale is cool and pretty well-calculated in his 
friendships as in everything else ; and I imagine he 
forgathers with Jeffard without prejudice to his 
own private convictions in the Garvin affair. It ’s 
a bit odd, but Jeffard seems to have most of the re- 
membrances on his side.” 

“ The kindly ones, you mean ? ” 

“ Yes. I had n’t seen Lansdale yet, and I asked 
Jeffard how he was looking. He wagged his head, 
and there was a look in his eyes that I ’d seen there 
more than once in the old days. ‘ Unless there is 
something to be done more than has been tried, it ’s 
only a question of weeks,’ said he ; and then he 
went back to something I had said that morning in 
Leadville just before he climbed the engine for the 
race to Aspen.” 

Myra’s eyebrows arched a query, and he eluci- 
dated. 

“ Did n’t I tell you ? We had been talking about 
Connie, and I had hinted that she ’d be willing to 
buy health for Lansdale at a price ; and he ” — 

Myra cut in swiftly. “ Has she told you that, 
Dick ? ” 

“ Hardly ; but I ’ve eyes, have n’t I ? Well, as 
I was saying, Jeffard went back to that, and asked 
if Lansdale’s recovery still meant as much to Con- 
nie. I told him I thought it meant rather more 
than less; and then he went into his shell, and 
when he came out it was on the human side. Said 
he had money to burn now, and asked if there was 
anytliing anybody could do to give Lansdale a bet- 


350 


THE HELPERS 


ter show for his white alley. I told him what I ’d 
do if I could break away from the Myriad.” 

“ I remember ; you said you would take him 
afield.” 

“ Yes. Kig up a team and a camping outfit, and 
chase him out into the mountains. Make him live 
outdoors for a month or two, and belt him over the 
head if I ever caught him sharpening a lead pencil. 
He ’s grinding away with Kershaw nights and Sun- 
days, and trying to write a novel between times. 
It ’s a clear case of work-to-death.” 

Myra nodded. ‘‘ I think so ; I have thought so 
all along. But he wouldn’t go with Mr. Jeffard.” 

“ That ’s what I thought, and what I told Jeffard 
when he hinted at the thing. But we were both off ; 
and that brings me to the other happening. After 
we ’d smoked over it — Jeffard and I — we went 
around and hunted up Lansdale’s doctor. The 
medicine-man agreed with me that it was the only 
chance, but he did n’t give us much encouragement. 
Said it was a forlorn hope, with the odds against 
Lansdale ; that he ’d die if he did n’t go, and would 
probably die if he did. Jeffard had been in and 
out of his shell two or three times since the begin- 
ning of it, but he came out again at that and stayed 
out. Said he owed Lansdale, and that would be 
a good way to wipe out the account. I told him 
that would n’t go ; that if he wanted to do Lansdale 
a good turn, he ’d have to do it on its merits. ‘ I 
sha’n’t be such a fool as to tell Lansdale I 'm try- 
ing to square up with him,’ says he. ‘You go 
and persuade him.’ ” 


THE HELPERS 


351 


Myra’s hand was on his knee. “ You poor boy ! ” 
she said ; “ they always unload the thankless things 
on you, don’t they ? Did you try ? ” 

“ Sure. If I ’d felt like hanging back, a sight 
of Lansdale would have done the business for me. 
It s awful, little woman. I ’ve seen dead men, and 
men that were going to die, but never a dying one 
that wanted so hard to live. Of course, he kicked 
clear over the traces when I proposed it, though I 
lied like a whitehead, and tried to make him be- 
lieve it was my scheme to help Jeffard get cured of 
his case of mental and moral ‘ jimmies.’ When 
that failed, I dug right down to hard-pan. ‘You 
want to live, don’t you ? ’ said I, and when he ad- 
mitted it, I biffed him square on the point of the 
jaw. Says I, ‘ Then it ’s a question of your stiff- 
necked New England pride against your love for a 
little girl who would give her right hand to see you 
well and strong, is it ? You ’re not as good a man 
as I thought you were.’ ” 

Myra was moved to protest. “ Oh, Dick ! I do 
hop^ you have n’t taken too much for granted ! But 
go on ; what did he say ? ” 

“ I thought he ’d rise up and faU on me at first ; 
but he did n’t. He mumbled something about the 
‘precious balms of a friend breaking his head,’ and 
said I was altogether mistaken; that Connie was 
only an angel of mercy, one of God’s little ones, and 
a few other things of that sort.” 

“ ‘ Only ’ ! ” laughed Myra. 

“ Yes, ‘ only.’ But I could see that my shoulder- 


352 


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blow had knocked him out. He switched the talk 
to Jeffard, and pretty soon he was asking me if I 
really thought he could do any good in that quarter ; 
or if my saying so was merely a lie cut out of whole 
cloth. I was soaked through by that time, and 
another plunge more or less did n’t cut any figure, 
so I told him it was n’t a lie ; that there was still 
hope for Jeffard if any one would lay hold of him 
and stick to him. ‘ What kind of hope, Dick ? ’ 
says he. And I said, ‘ The only kind that counts ; 
the kind that ’ll make him all through what he is in 
part.’ He shook his head at that, and said, ‘ I don’t 
know. That would mean repentance and restitu- 
tion, — and the money ’s got its teeth into him now.’ 
I ’ll have to admit that I was arguing dead against 
the probabilities, and I knew it ; but I would n’t let 
go.” 

Myra’s smile was tempered with affectionate pride. 
“You never do let go. Did he finally listen to 
reason ? ” 

“ Yes, at the end of it. But if it were six for 
himself and Connie, it was a good half-dozen for 
Jeffard. ‘I’ll go, Dick,’ said he. ‘I’m afraid 
your assumptions are aU good-hearted wishes, but 
I ’U go. Perhaps, if it comes to the worst, God will 
give me a man for my leave-taking.’ That was a 
new side of him, to me ; the Puritan side, is n’t it ? ” 

“ The human side,” she amended. “ It is merely 
crusted a little thicker in the Puritan family.” 

“ But it ’s there, all the same. Out here, where 
the horizons and other things are pretty wide open, 


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353 


we ^re apt to say what we think, and pretty much all 
of it ; but Lansdale and his kind think a good bit 
more and keep it to themselves. He ’s all right. 
I only wish his getting weU were as sure as the 
goodness of him. Are you getting sleepy? Want 
your berth made down ? ” 

“ Presently.” Myra was gazing out at the night- 
wall slipping past the car windows, and for her the 
thick blackness mirrored a picture of a sweet-faced 
young woman sitting on a denim-covered lounge, 
with her hands tight clasped over one knee and her 
eyes alight with a soft starglow of compassion. And 
because of the picture, she said : “I’m afraid you 
did n’t take too much for granted, Dick ; and I 
could almost wish it were otherwise. It is heart- 
breaking to think of it.” 

Dick went over to a seat beside her, and tried to 
put himself as nearly as possible at her point of view. 

“ Let ’s not try to cross their bridges for them 
beforehand, little woman,” he said, with his lips at 
her ear. “ Life is pretty middling full for all of us, 
— for us two, at any rate.” 

It was five minutes later, and the train had stopped 
for orders at the canyon gateway, when she turned 
to him to say: “What do you think about Mr. 
Jeffard now, Dick? Are we all mistaken? or is he 
the hardened cynic he seems to be ? ” 

Bartrow did not reply on the spur of the moment, 
as was his custom. When he had reasoned it out, 
he said : — 

“ I think we ought to break away from the notion 


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that a man has got to be either all angel or all 
devil. Jeffard ’s a human man, like the rest of us. 
He ’s done some good things that I know of, — and 
one pretty bad one ; and it ’s the bad one that is 
setting the pace for him just now. But, as I once 
said to Lansdale, I ’m betting on the finish. One 
bad curve need n’t spoil a whole railroad.” 

Myra’s hand sought and found his under cover of 
her wrap. “You are loyalty itself, Dick, and I 
can’t help loving you for it. But you say ‘ one bad 
one.’ Have you forgotten the Irish girl ? ” 

Dick set his jaw at that, and the big hand closed 
firmly over the small one. 

“ When I have to believe that of him, Myra, my 
faith in my kind wiU drop back more notches than 
one. That would make him aU devil, don’t you 
see?” 

But her charity outran his. “ No, Dick ; I don’t 
quite see it. It is just one more coil in the puzzle- 
tangle of good and evil that you spoke of. Connie 
knows it, and if she can find it in her heart to for- 
give him ” — 

There was reverent awe in Bartrow’s rejoinder. 
“ Do you mean to say she ’d forgive him — that f ” 

The intermittent clatter and roar of the canyon 
climb had begun, and in one of the breathing spaces 
Myra made answer. 

“ She is one of God’s little ones, as Mr. Lansdale 
said. I think she would forgive him even that.” 
And in the next gap in the clamor, “ Did you teD 
h i m about Garvin ? ” 


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355 


Dick shook his head. “ No, I did n’t dare to. 
It ’s a hard thing to say, hut I ’m not sure he 
would n’t prosecute Jim for the attempt to kill. 
There ’s no such vindictiveness in the world as that 
which dates hack to benefits forgot. But I told 
Lansdale, and gave him leave to make use of it if 
the time should ever come when he could do it with- 
out jeopardizing Garvin.” 

At which Myra’s charity stumbled and feU and 
ran no more. 

“That time will never come, Dick. Mr. Jeffard 
has a double feud with Garvin, — he is Garvin’s 
debtor for benefits forgot, as you say; and he has 
done Garvin an injury. I am glad you did n’t teU 
him.” 


CHAPTER XXXI 


“ She ’s gone to her rest, at last, poor soul, and 
it ’s happy she ’d be if it was n’t for the childer.” 

Constance had been waiting through the long 
hours of the afternoon for Margaret’s return from 
Owen David’s shanty on the North Side; waiting 
for the summons to the death-bed of the mother of 
Owen David’s children. She had promised to go, 
wherefore her heart smote her and the ready tears 
weUed up at Margaret’s announcement. 

“ Oh, Margaret ! Why did n’t you come for me ! ” 

“ ’T was no use at .aU, Miss Constance ; ’t was 
her last word she said to you this morning, when 
she asked you to try once more with Owen for the 
childer’s sake. When you ’d gone she turned her 
face to the wall, and we never knew when her soul 
went out.” 

“ Was Owen there ? ” 

“ He was ; and it ’s sober he was for the first time 
in many a day. He took it hard ; them Welsh are 
flighty people, anyway.” 

“ He ought to take it hard,” said Constance, with 
as near an approach to vindictiveness as the heart 
of compassion would sanction. “ Has everything 
been done ? ” 

Margaret nodded. “ The neighbors were that 


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357 


kind ; and it ’s poor hard-working people they are, 
too.” 

“ I know,” said Constance. She was making 
ready to go out, and she found her purse and 
counted its keepings. They were as scanty as her 
will to help was plenteous. Myra’s check had been 
generous, but the askings were many, and there was 
no more than the sweet savor of it left. “I’m 
sure I don’t know what Owen will do,” she went on. 
“ I suppose there is n’t money enough to bury her.” 

Margaret had taken off her hat and jacket and 
she was suddenly impelled to go to work. The 
lounge-cover was awry, and in the straightening of 
it she said : — 

“Don’t you be worrying about that, now, Miss 
Constance. It was Owen himself that was giving 
me the money for the funeral when I was leaving.” 

“ Owen ? Where did he get it? He has n’t had 
a day’s work for a month.” 

Margaret was smoothing the cover and shaking 
the pillows vigorously. “ Sure, that ’s just what I 
was thinking ” (slap, slap), “ but I ’ve his money 
in my pocket this blessed minute. So you just go 
and say a sweet word to the childer. Miss Con- 
stance, and don’t you be worrying about anything.” 

Connie’s hand was on the door-knob, but she 
turned with a sudden sinking of the heart, and a 
swift impulse that sent her across the room to Mar- 
garet’s side. 

“ Margaret, you gave Owen that money before he 
gave it to you. Where did you get it ? ” 


358 


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Margaret left off beating the pillows and slipped 
upon her knees to bury her face in one of them. 

“ I knew you ’d be asking that,” she sobbed, and 
then : “ Have n’t I been working honest every day 
since Christmas ? And does it be taking all I earn 
to keep me, I ’d like to know ? ” 

Constance went down on her knees beside the 
girl, and what she said was to One who was merci- 
ful even to the Magdalenes. When she rose the 
pain of it was a little dulled, and she went back to 
the charitable necessities in a word. 

“Is there any one to watch with her to-night, 
Margaret ? ” 

The girl lifted a tear-stained face, and the pas- 
sionate Irish eyes were swimming, and Constance 
turned away because her loving compassion was 
greater than her determination to be judicially 
severe. 

“ I’m one,” Margaret answered ; “ and Mrs. 
Mulcahey ’ll come over when her man gets home.” 

“Very well. I’ll go over and give the children* 
their suppers and put them to bed. I ’U stay till 
you come, and you can bring Tommie to take me 
home.” 

Constance went upon her mission heavy-hearted ; 
and in the hovel across the river found comfort in 
the giving of comfort. The David children were 
all little ones, too young to fuUy realize their loss ; 
and when they had been fed and hushed to sleep, 
and one of David’s fellow workmen had taken the 
husband away for the night, Constance sat dowm in 


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359 


the room with the dead to wait for Margaret. For 
a heart less pitiful or a soul less steadfast, the 
silence of the night and the solitary watch with the 
sheeted figure on the bed might have been unnerv- 
ing ; but in all her life Constance had never had to 
reckon with fear. Hence, when the door opened 
behind her without a preliminary knock, and a foot- 
step crossed the threshold, she thought it was one 
of the neighbors and rose softly with her finger on 
her lip. But when she saw who it was, she started 
back and made as if she would retreat to the room 
where the children were. 

“ You ! ” she said. “ Why are you here ? ” 

“I beg your pardon.” Jeffard said it deferen- 
tially, almost humbly. “ I did n’t expect to find 
you here ; I was looking for — for the man, you 
know. What has become of him ? ” 

The hesitant pause in the midst of the explanation 
opened the door for a swift suspicion, — a suspicion 
too horrible to be entertained, and yet too strong 
to be driven forth. There was righteous indignation 
in her eyes when she went close to him and said : — 
“ Can you stand here in the presence of that ” — 
pointing to the sheeted figure on the bed — “ and 
lie to me ? You expected to meet Margaret Gan- 
non here. You have made an appointment with 
Rer — an assignation in the house of the dead. 
Shame on you I ” 

It should have crushed him. It did for the 
moment. And when he rallied it was apparently 
in a spirit of the sheerest hardihood. 


360 


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“ You are right,” he said ; “ I did expect to meet 
Margaret. With your permission, I ’ll go outside 
and wait for her.” 

She flashed between him and the door and put 
her back to it. 

“ Not until you have heard what I have to say, 
Mr. Jeffard. I ’ve been wanting to say it ever since 
Tommie told me, but you have been very careful not 
to give me a chance. You know this girl’s story, 
and what she has had to fight from day to day. 
Are you so lost to every sense of justice and mercy 
as to try to drag her back into sin and shame after 
all her pitiful strugglings ? ” 

‘‘It would seem so,” Jeffard retorted, and his 
smile was harder than his words. “It is quite con- 
ceivable that you should believe it of the man who 
once took your charity and made a mock of it. 
May I go now ? ” 

“ Oh, no, not yet ; not until you have promised 
me to spare and slay not, for this once. Think of 
it a moment ; it is the price of a human soul ! And 
it is such a little thing for you to concede.” 

The hard smile came and went again. 

“ Another man might say that Margaret has come 
to be very beautiful, Miss EUiott.” 

The indignation was gone out of her eyes, and her 
lips were trembling. 

“ Oh, how can you be so hard ! ” she faltered. 
“ Will nothing move you? ” 

He met the beseeching with a steady gaze that 
might have been the outlooking of a spirit of calm 


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361 


superiority or the cold stare of a demon of ruthless- 
ness. The mere suggestion of the alternative made 
her hot and cold by turns. 

“ I wonder that you have the courage to appeal to 
me/’ he said, at length. “ Are you not afraid ? ” 

“ For Margaret’s sake I am not afraid.” 

“You are very brave — and very loyal. Do you 
wonder that I was once moved to tell you that I 
loved you ? ” 

“ How can you speak of that here — and now ! ” 
she burst out. “ Is there no measure of the hard- 
ness of your heart? Is it not enough that you 
should make me beg for that which I have a right 
to demand ? ” 

He went apart from her at that to walk softly up 
and down in the narrow space between the bed and 
the waU, — to walk for leaden-winged minutes that 
seemed hours to Constance, waiting for his answer. 
At the final turn he lifted the sheet from the face of 
the dead woman and looked long and earnestly, as 
one who would let death speak where life was dumb 
and inarticulate. Constance watched him with her 
heart in a turmoil of doubt and fear. The doubt was 
of her own making, as the fear was of his. She had 
thought that this man was known to her, in his poten- 
tialities for good or evil, in his stumblings upon the 
brink of the abyss, and in his later plunge into the 
depths of wrongdoing ; but now that she was brought 
face to face with him, her prefigurings took new 
shapes and she feared to look upon them. For the 
potentialities had suddenly become superhuman, and 


362 


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love itself stood aghast at the possibilities. In the 
midst of it he stood before her again. 

“ What is it that you would have me do ? ” he 
asked. 

The tone of it assured her that her battle was 
fought and won ; but at the moment of victory she 
had not the strength to make terms with him. 

“ You know what you ought to do,” she said, with 
eyes downcast. 

“ The ‘ oughts ’ are sometimes terribly hard. Miss 
EUiott. Have n’t you found them so ? ” 

“ Sometimes.” She was finding one of them 
sufficiently hard at that moment to compel the ad- 
mission. 

“ But they are never impossible, you would say, 
and that is true also. You asked me a few moments 
ago if there was nothing that would move me, and I 
was tempted. But that is past. Will you suffer me 
to go now ? ” 

She stood aside, but her hand was still on the 
latch of the door. 

“You have not promised,” she said. 

“ Pardon me ; I was hoping you would spare me. 
The cup is of my own mixing, but the lees are bitter. 
Must I drain them ? ” 

“I — I don’t understand,” she rejoined. 

“ Don’t you ? Consider it a moment. You have 
taken it for granted that I had it in my heart to do 
this thing, and, knowing what you do of me, the in- 
ference is just. But I have not admitted it, and I 
had hoped you would spare me the admission which 


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363 


a promise would imply. Won’t you leave me tliis 
poor shadow of refutation ? ” 

She opened the door for him. 

“ Thank you ; it is much more than I deserve. 
Since you do not ask it, you shall have the assurance, 
— the best I can give. I shall leave Denver in a 
day or two, and you may take your own measures 
for safeguarding Margaret in the interval. Per- 
haps it won’t be as difficult as you may imagine. 
If I have read her aright you may ask large things 
of her loyalty and devotion to you.” 

The battle was over, and she had but to hold her 
peace to be quit of him. But having won her cause 
it was not in the loving heart of her to let him go 
unrecompensed. 

“ You are going away ? Then we may not meet 
again. I gave you bitter words a few minutes ago, 
Mr. Jeffard, but I believed they were true. Won’t 
you deny them — if you can ? ” 

His foot was across the threshold, but he turned 
to smile down upon her. 

“ You are a true woman. You said I lied to you, 
and now you ask me to deny it, knowing well enough 
that the denial wiU afterward stand for another 
falsehood. I know what you think of me, — what 
you are bound to think of me ; but is n’t it conceiv- 
able that I would rather quench that fire than add 
fuel to it ? ” 

“ But you are going away,” she insisted. 

“And since we may never meet again, you crave 
the poor comfort of a denial. You shall have it for 


364 


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what it is worth. When you are inclined to think 
charitably of me, go back to first principles and re- 
member that the worst of men have sometimes had 
promptings which were not altogether unworthy. 
Let the major accusation stand, if you choose; I 
did have an appointment here with Margaret Gan- 
non. But when your faith in humankind needs 
heartening, conceive that for this once the tryst was 
one which any woman might have kept with me. 
Believe, if you care to, that my business here this 
evening was really with this poor fellow whose sins 
have found him out. Would you like to be able to 
believe that ? ’’ 

For the first time since doubt and fear had gotten 
the better of indignation she was able to lift her eyes 
to his. 

“ I will believe it,” she said gratefully. 

He smiled again, and she was no longer afraid. 
Now that she came to think of it, she wondered if 
she had ever been really afraid of him. 

“Your faith is very beautiful. Miss Elliott. I 
am glad to be able to give it something better than 
a bare suggestion to build on. Will you give this 
to Margaret when she comes ? ” 

It was a folded paper, with a printed title and in- 
dorsement blanks on the back. She took it and 
glanced at the filing. It was the deed to a burial 
lot in the name of Owen David. 

“ Oh ! ” she said ; and there was a world of con- 
trition and self-reproach in the single word. “ Can 
you ever forgive me, Mr. Jeffard ? ” 


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365 


As once before, when Lansdale had proffered it, 
Jeffard pushed aside the cup of reinstatement. 

“ Don’t take too much for granted. Remember, 
the indictment still stands. Margaret Gannon’s 
tempter might have done this and still merit your 
detestation.” 

And at the word she was once more alone with 
the still figure on the bed. 


CHAPTER XXXII 


Eor what reason Constance, left alone in the 
house of the dead, went softly from the lighted 
room to kneel at the bedside of the sleeping chil- 
dren in the lean-to beyond — to kneel with her face 
in her hands and her heart swelling with emotions 
too great for any outlet save that of sorrowful be- 
seechings, — let those adjudge who have passed in 
some crucial moment from loss to gain, and back 
to loss again. There was a pitiful heart cry in the 
prayer for help because she knew now that love, 
mighty and unreasoning, must be reckoned with in 
every future thought of this man ; love heedless of 
consequences, clinging first to an imagined ideal, and 
now to the sorrowful wreck of that ideal; love 
lashed into being, it may be, by the very whip of 
shame, acknowledged only to be chained and dun- 
geoned in the Castle of Despair, but alive and 
pleading, and promising yet to live and plead 
though hope were dead. 

It was thus that Margaret found her an hour 
later; and in the darkness of the little room the 
true-hearted Irish girl knelt beside her saint, with 
her strong arms around the weeping one, and a sob 
of precious sympathy in the outpouring of words. 

“There now — there now. Miss Constance! is 


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367 


it kneeling here and crying for these poor left ones 
that you are ? Sure it ’s the Holy Virgin herself 
that ’ll he mothering them, and the likes of them. 
And Owen ’ll be doing his part, too. It ’s a 
changed man he is.” 

Constance shook her head. She was too sincere 
to let the lesser reason stand for the greater, even 
with Margaret. 

• “ I do grieve for them, Margaret ; but — but it 

is n’t that.” 

“ It is n’t that, do you say ? Then I know full 
well what it is, and it ’s the truth I ’m going to tell 
you. Miss Constance, for all the promisings he made 
me give him. ’T is Mr. Jeffard’s money that ’s to 
go for the funeral, and it was him left it with me to 
give to Owen. He told me you ’d not take it from 
him, and ’twas his own free gift. Ever since he 
came back he ’s been giving me money for the poor 
ones, and making me swear never to tell you ; but it 
was for your sweet sake. Miss Connie, and not for 
mine. I ’d want to die if you did n’t believe that.” 

“ Oh, Margaret ! are you telling me the truth ? 
I do so want to believe it ! ” 

Margaret rose and drew her confessor to the half- 
open door ; to the bedside of the sheeted one. 

“ A little while ago she was alive and talking to 
you. Miss Constance, and you believed her because 
you knew she was going fast. If I ’d be like that, 
I ’d teU you the same.” 

“ I believe you, Margaret — I do believe you ; 
and, oh, I ’m so thankful ! It would break my 
heart to have you go back now ! ” 


368 


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“ Don’t you be worrying for me. Did n’t I say 
once that the devil might fly away with me, but I ’d 
not live to leave him have the good of it ? When 
that time comes, Miss Constance, it ’s another dead 
woman you ’ll be crying over. And now you ’ll go 
home and take your rest ; the good old father is 
waiting on the doorstep for you.” 

Even with his daughter, Stephen Elliott was the 
most reticent of men ; and on the little journey up* 
the river front and across the viaduct he plodded 
along in silence beside her, waiting for her to speak 
if she had anything to say. Constance had a heart 
full to overflowing, but not of the things which lend 
themselves to speech with any father ; and when she 
broke the silence it was in self-defense, and on the 
side of the commonplace. 

“ Have you decided yet where you will go ? ” 
she asked, knowing that the arrangements for the 
prospecting trip were all but completed. 

“ N — no, not exactly. Except that I never have 
gone with the rush, and I don’t mean to this time. 
There ’s some pretty promising country around up 
back of Dick’s mountain, and I ’ve been thinking of 
that.” 

“ I wish you would go into the Bonanza district,” 
she said. “ If I ’m to stay with Dick and Myra, 
it will be a comfort to know that you are not very 
far away.” 

The old man plodded another square before he 
succeeded in casting his thought into words. 

“ I was wondering if that was n’t the reason why 


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369 


I want to go there. I ’m not letting on to anybody 
about it, but I ’m getting sort of old and trembly, 
Connie; and you’re about all I have left.” 

She slipped her arm an inch or two farther 
through his. “ Must it be, poppa ? Can’t we get 
along without it ? I ’ll be glad to live like the 
poorest of them, if we can only be together.” 

“ I know ; you ’re a good daughter to me, Connie, 
and you ’d go into the hospital on Dr. Gordon’s 
offer to-morrow, if I ’d say the word. But I think 
the last strike I made rather spoiled me. I got 
sort of used to the flesh-pots, and I haven’t got 
over feeling for my check-book yet. I guess I ’ll 
have to try it once more before we go on the 
county.” 

She would have said more had there been more 
to say. But her arguments had all been exhausted 
when the prospecting fever had set in, and she 
could only send him forth with words of heartening 
and a brave God-speed. 

“ I ’m not going to put things in the way,” she 
said ; “ but I ’d go with you and help dig, if you ’d 
let me. The next best thing will be to have you 
somewhere within reach, and I shall be comforted 
if you can manage to keep Topeka Mountain in 
sight. But you won’t.” 

“Yes, I wiU, daughter; the string pulls about 
as hard at my end as it does at yours, and I ’ll tell 
you what I ’ll do. The gulches that I had in mind 
are all up at the head of Myriad Creek, and I ’ll 
ship the ‘stake’ to Dick, and make the Myriad 


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a sort of outfitting camp. How will that strike 
you?’’ 

“ That will be fine,” she said ; adding, in an up- 
flash of the old gayety : “ and when you ’ve located 
your claim, Myra and I will come and turn the 
windlass for you.” 

They were ’ climbing the stairs to the darkened 
suite on the third floor, and at the door Constance 
found a telegraph messenger trying to pin a non- 
delivery notice to the panel. She signed his blank 
by the hall light, and read the message while her 
father was unlocking the door and lighting the 
lamp. 

“ It is from Myra,” she explained ; “ and it ’s 
good news and bad. Do you remember what Dick 
was telling us the other evening about his drunken 
blacksmith ? ” 

“ The fellow that went into the blast-choke after 
the dead man ? ” 

“Yes. He is down with mountain fever, and 
Myra says nothing but good nursing will save him. 
Dick has got his story out of him at last; he is 
Margaret Gannon’s father.” 

“ Humph ! what a little world this is ! I suppose 
you will send Margaret right away ? ” 

“ I shall go with her to-morrow morning. I ’ll 
tell Dick what you are going to do, and you can 
come when you are ready.” 

The old man nodded acquiescence. “It’U be 
better for you to go along ; she ’U be all broke up. 
W ant me to go and wire Dick ? ” 


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371 


“ If you wiU. I should have asked the boy to 
wait, but he was gone before I had opened the en- 
velope. Tell Dick to keep him alive at any cost, 
and that we ’LL be there to-morrow evening.” 

When her father was gone, Constance sat down 
to piece out the discoveries, comforting and har- 
rowing, of the foregone hour, and to set them over 
against each other in a field which was as yet too 
near to be retrospective. She tried to stand aside 
for herself, and to see and consider only those to 
whom her heart went out in loving compassion and 
sympathy ; but it was inevitable that she should 
finally come to a re-reading of the letter taken from 
its hiding-place in the photograph frame. She dwelt 
upon it with a soft fiush spreading slowly from neck 
to cheek, reading it twice and yet once again before 
she laid it in the little waU-pocket of a grate and 
touched a match to it. 

“ For his sake and for mine,” she said softly, as 
she watched it shrivel and blacken in the flame. 
“ That is what I must do — burn my ships so that 
I can’t go back.” 

The charred wraith of the letter went up the 
chimney in the expiring gasp of the flame, and 
there was the sound of a familiar step in the cor- 
ridor. She went quickly to open the door for the 
late visitor. It was Lansdale, come to say what 
must be said on the eve of parting, and to ask for 
his answer to a conditional plea made in a moment 
when the consumptive’s optimism had carried him 
off his feet. 


CHAPTER XXXIII 


The periods of the scene-shifter, in life as in life’s 
mimicking on any stage, have fallen into disesteem. 
In any flight of fancy or plodding journey of fact 
these are flat countries to be traversed ; interreg- 
nums which, however replete with incident for the 
actors themselves, are deemed alike unworthy of the 
playwright’s outworking or the chronicler’s record- 
ing. To the audience waiting beyond the footlights 
these are mere breathing spaces of music-hastened 
minutes standing for whatever lapses of days, weeks 
or months the story of the play involves ; but for 
the scene-shifter they are gaps toil-filled, with fierce 
strivings and wrestlings and doughty compellings of 
the animate and inanimate perversities. 

None the less, for the toiler behind the scenes 
there are compensations. For the audience, the 
entr’acte is a solution of continuity, more or less 
skillfully bridged, according to the playwright’s gift ; 
but the worker of transformations knows no break 
in the action. For him the story of the play is 
complete, marching evenly to its climax through 
spoken line and drop-curtained interregnum. 

The curtain has rung down upon an interior in 
an apartment house. It is to rise upon a flash- 
light picture of a summer night scene in a mountain- 


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373 


girt valley. The walls of the homelike interior 
vanish, and in their stead dim reaches of the forest- 
clad mountains suggest themselves. A stream tum- 
bles over the boulders in its bed with a hollow roar 
hinting at canyoned plungings above ; and on the 
margin of it a quaking aspen blinks its many-lidded 
eyes in the light of a camp fire. 

Against the pillared background of forest, pri- 
meval firs whose sombre greens become murky black 
in the firelight, a campers’ wagon is drawn up; 
and the picket pins of the grazing horses are driven 
in a grass grown extension of the glade to the right. 
There is a silken whisper abroad in the night, rising 
and falling upon the sound waves of the tumbling 
stream : the voices of the trees as they call to each 
other in the night wind pouring softly down from 
the sky-pitched peaks. 

The scene is set and the actors are in their places. 
They are two men clad in flannel shirts and brown 
duck overalls and shooting-coats. One of them is 
bearded and bronzed, with the well-knit figure of 
conscious strength. The other is of slighter frame, 
and on his clean-shaven face the prolonged holiday 
in the open is but now beginning to impress the 
stamp of returning health and vigor. The bearded 
man is on his back beside the fire, with his clasped 
hands for a pillow and an extinct pipe between his 
teeth. The clean-shaven one is propped against the 
bole of a tree ; his eyes are closed, and his pipe has 
slipped from his fingers. 

A brand falls into the glowing mass of embers, and 


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the sparks fly upward in a crackling shower. It is 
the prompter’s caU-bell. The man reclining at the 
tree-foot opens his eyes, and the bearded one sits up 
and feels mechanically for the tobacco pouch. 

“ Here it is,” says Lansdale. “ I was just about 
to fiU up again when the realities slipped away. 
It ’s astonishing how one can sleep overtime in these 
upper levels.” 

. The athletic one rises and stretches till his joints 
crack. “ Been asleep, have you ? So have I. 
There ’s no opiate in the world like a day’s tramp- 
ing in the altitudes. Freshen you up any? ” 

“ As to body, yes. But I ’ve had a curious dream 
— if it were a dream.” Silence while the sob of the 
river rises and falls on the night wind, and then a 
half-hesitant query. “ Jeffard, do you believe in pre- 
sentiments ? ” 

The bearded one is on his knees before the fire, 
pressing a live coal into the bowl of his pipe, and the 
answer is delayed. 

“ I don’t know whether I do or not ; I have never 
had one.” 

“ But you have known of others having them, 
have n’t you ? ” 

“ Of one other : but in that instance it was fore- 
knowledge rather than a foreboding. The presenti- 
ment should have been mine ; and I had none.” 

“ Would you mind telling me about it ? ” 

“ No. It was while I was making the survey for 
a logging railway in Quebec. I expected to be out 
all summer, but in the middle of it the company 


THE HELPERS 


375 


called a halt and I went home. I had n’t wired or 
written, but when I reached Hinsdale my father 
was at the station to meet me. For three days my 
mother had been insisting that I would come, and to 
quiet her they had been meeting the trains. She 
died the next evening.” 

“ And you had no premonition ? ” 

“ None whatever. For a month or more I had 
been beyond the reach of the mails ; and I had left 
her in her usual health. It was a bolt out of a clear 
sky.” 

Again the brawling stream and the whispering 
leaves fill the gap of silence ; and as before, Lansdale 
is the first to speak. 

“ I have always scouted such things, as sanity 
seems to demand. Stories with any element of the 
supernatural in them have never appealed to me be- 
cause, however well authenticated, they were always 
stories, and never actual happenings in which I had 
any part. But for the last day or two I ’ve had a 
growing sense of impending calamity, and I can’t 
shake it off.” 

There is the brusquerie of heartening in Jeffard’s 
rejoinder. 

“ Nonsense ! It ’s only the imaginative part of 
you kicking against the pricks of a longish holiday.” 

“ That is ingenious, but I can’t quite accept it. 
I ’ve eaten and slept with the imaginative fiend long 
enough to be pretty well acquainted with his vagaries. 
This is altogether different. It is precisely the feel- 
ing you have had just before a storm ; a sense of de- 


376 


THE HELPERS 


pression as intangible as darkness, but quite as real. 
It was with me a few minutes ago when I fell asleep, 
and the dream seemed to be a part of it.” 

“ Oh, dreams,” says the scoffer ; “ I thought they 
had been accounted for by the dietists. I told you 
that last batch of panbread held possibilities. But 
go on and unload your dream. I ’m shudder-proof.” 

Lansdale tells it circumstantially, keeping his pipe 
alight in the periods. 

“ It did n’t seem like a dream ; at least, not in the 
beginning of it. I was sitting here just as I am 
now, and you were on your back over there, with the 
pipe in your mouth. The surroundings were the 
same, except that the fire was burning low. I remem- 
ber thinking that you must have fallen asleep, and 
wondering why the pipe did n’t fall and wake you. 
After a time the roar of the stream seemed to quiet 
down, and I heard the clink of horseshoes upon stone. 
The sound came from across the stream, and as I 
looked I saw a trail and a horseman coming down it. 
It was all so real that I wondered why I had n’t no- 
ticed the trail before. The man rode down to the 
water’s edge and made as if he would cross. I saw 
him quite distinctly, and thought it curious, because 
the fire was too low to give much light. He merely 
glanced at the stream, and then turned his horse’s 
head and rode down the opposite bank. He passed 
out of sight among the trees, and a moment later I 
heard the horse’s hoofs again, this time as if he were 
on a bridge of poles.” 

Jeffard has been listening with attention no more 


THE HELPERS 


377 


than decently alert, but at this point he breaks in to 
say : “ You Ve been walking in your sleep. Go on.’’ 

“ It was just here that the supernatural came in. 
I told you that the man had passed out of sight, but 
all at once I seemed to see him again. He was on 
a corduroy bridge crossing the stream, and I saw 
plainly what he did not, — that the bridge was un- 
safe, and that a step or two would plunge him into 
the torrent. I don’t remember what followed, save 
that I tried to call out, first to him and then to you ; 
but my voice seemed to be swallowed up in the thun- 
der of the water. There was a little gap filled with 
fierce struggiings, and then I seemed to be here 
again, lying by the wagon with a blanket over me ; 
and you were walking up and down with another man, 
— a stranger. That is all ; except that I tried to 
teU you that you were wet through and would take 
cold, — tried and could n’t, and awoke.” 

Jeffard has risen to put another log on the fire. 

“ It ’s the panbread,” he says, with the air of one 
who sweeps the board for a resetting of the pieces. 
But after a little he adds : “ I was wondering how 
you came to know about the bridge. That is the 
only unaccountable twist in it.” 

“ Is there a bridge ? ” 

“ Yes ; it ’s just below that farther clump of 
aspens. But there is nothing the matter with it 
that I could see. I noticed it while I was picketing 
the horses.” 

“ And is there a trail on the other side of the 
stream ? ” 


378 


THE HELPERS 


“ There is. There used to be a ford just here, 
but it was dangerous, and we built the bridge.” 

“ Then you have been here before ? ” 

“ Yes, many times. I spent the better half of a 
summer and all of one winter in this valley. The 
Midas is just below here. I meant to surprise you 
to-morrow morning.” 

Lansdale’s gaze is in the heart of the fire and his 
voice is low. “ Do you know, Henry, 1 ’m rather 
glad you did n’t wait ? Don’t ask me why, because I 
can’t teU you in terms divisible by the realities. But 
somehow the to-morrows don’t seem to be assured.” 

“ Oh, pshaw ! that ’s your dream — and the pan- 
bread its father. If you had talked that way a 
month ago, when you were really living from hand 
to mouth ” — 

Lansdale spreads his hands palms down and looks 
at them. 

“You promised me a new lease of life, Henry, 
and you ’ve given it me, — or the key to it. I did n’t 
believe it could be done, and my chief trouble in 
those first days was the thought that you ’d have to 
bury me alone. And when we camped in a particu- 
larly rocky spot, I used to wonder how you would 
manage it.” 

Jefiard’s smile is of grimness. “ If you had men- 
tioned it, I could have helped you off with that 
burden. These mountains are full of graves, ready- 
made ; prospect holes, where the better part of many 
a man lies buried. Do you see that heap of earth 
and stone over yonder ? ” 


THE HELPERS 379 

Lansdale shades his eyes from the firelight and 
looks and sees. 

“That is one of them. Just behind that heap 
there is a shaft with a windlass across it, and for six 
weeks two men worked early and late digging a 
hole, which turned out to be an excellent well 
when the water came in and stopped them.” 

“ And the water was bitter,” says Lansdale. “ Did 
you drink of it, Henry?” 

“ No ; but the other man did, and he went mad.” 

Once more the stream and the sighing night wind 
share the silence. For many days Lansdale has 
been assuring himself that the golden moment for 
speech of the helpful sort must ultimately be made 
and not waited for. In the hour when he had con- 
sented to Bartrow’s urgings he had been given to see 
his opportunity and had determined to grasp it, — 
had made the determination the excuse for sharing 
Jeffard’s hospitality. He can look back upon that 
resolve now and see that it was perfunctory ; that 
the prompting had been of duty and not at all of 
love for the man. But the weeks of close compan- 
ionship have wrought more miracles than one, and 
not the least among them is a great amazement 
builded upon the daily renewal of Jeffard’s loving- 
kindnesses. For the man with the world-quarrel 
has been a brother indeed ; nurse, physician, kins- 
man, and succoring friend ; with the world-quarrel 
put aside from the moment of out setting, and with 
» apparently no object in life less worthy than that of 
fighting a vicarious battle for a sick man. The 


380 


THE HELPERS 


summary of it is humanizing, and the last uphold- 
ings of the crust of reserve break down in the 
warmth of it. 

“ May I speak as the spirit moves, Henry ? 

“If you think I deserve it. Why shouldn’t 
you?” 

“ It is a question of obligations rather than of de- 
servings, — my obligations. No brother of my own 
blood could have done more for me than you have.” 

“ And you want to even it up ? ” 

“ No ; but I want to tell you while I may that it 
has come very near to me in these last few days. 
At first I was inclined to make another query of it, 
and to speculate as to your probable motive; but 
latterly I ’ve come to call it by its right name.” 

Jeffard shakes his head slowly, and removes his 
pipe to say : “ Don’t make any more mistakes, 

Lansdale. I ’m neither better nor worse than I was 
that night when I told you the story of the man and 
his temptation. I know what you mean and what 
you would say ; but this experiment and its results 
— the twenty odd pounds of flesh you have put on, 
and the new lease of life they stand for — mean more 
to me than they do to you.” 

“ I don’t begin to understand the drift of that,” 
says Lansdale. 

“ No ? I wonder if you would understand and 
believe if I should teU you the truth; if I should 
confess that my motive, so far as you are concerned, 
is entirely selfish? ” 

“ Since understanding implies belief, I shall have 


THE HELPERS 


381 


to say no to that. But you might try, — for your 
own satisfaction.” 

“It’s altogether unprofitable; hut perhaps it’s 
your due. I ’ll have to go back a little to make it 
clear. In the old days we were pretty good friends, 
but I think you will admit that there have always 
been reservations. You have n’t known me and I 
have n’t known you as friends of the David and 
Jonathan sort know each other. Is n’t that so? ” 

Lansdale is constrained to say “ Yes,” wishing it 
were otherwise. 

JefPard refills his pipe and fishes for another live 
coal in the fire-fringe. The g-r-r-rh of the graz- 
ing horses comes from the near-by glade, and again 
the silence begins to grow. Suddenly he says : 
“ Let ’s drop it, Lansdale, and talk about something 
else.” 

“ No, go on ; nothing you can say will efface the 
brotherly fact.” 

“ Very well, — if you will have it. You said you 
were inclined to question my motive. It was more 
than questionable ; it was frankly selfish.” 

“ Selfish ? You ’ll have to spell it out large for 
me. From my point of view it seems rather the 
other way about. What had you to gain by sad- 
dling yourseK with the care of a sick man ? ” 

“ I can’t put it in words — not without laying 
myself open to the charge of playing to the gallery. 
But let me state a fact and ask a question. A year 
ago you thought it was all up with you, and you 
did n’t seem to care much. A few months later I 


382 


THE HELPERS 


found you fighting for your life like a shipwrecked 
sailor with land in sight. What did it ? ” 

That the lava-crust of reserve is altogether molten 
is evinced in Lansdale’s straightforward reply. 

“ Love, — love for a woman. I think you must 
have known that.” 

“I did. That was why you were making the 
desperate fight for life ; and that is why we are here 
to-night, you and I. I love the woman, too.” 

Lansdale shakes his head slowly, and an ineffable 
smile is Jeffard’s reward. 

“ And yet you call .it selfishness, Henry. Man, 
man ! you have deliberately gone about to save my 
life when another might have taken it ! ” 

“ I shall reap where I have sown,” says Jeffard 
steadily. “ Latterly I have been living for one day, 
— the day when I can take you back to her in the 
good hope that she will forget what has been for the 
sake of what I have tried to make possible.” 

Once more Lansdale’s gaze is in the glowing heart 
of the’ fire, and the light in his eyes is prophetic, 

“ Verily, you shall reap, Henry ; but not in a field 
where you have sown. Don’t ask me how I know. 
That’s my secret. But out of all this wiU come 
a thing not to be measured by your prefigurings. 
You shall have your reward ; but I crave mine, too. 
WiU you give it me ? ” 

“If it be mine to give.” 

“It is. Do justice and love mercy, Henry. 
That is the thing I ’ve been trying to find words to 
say to you aU these weeks.” 


THE HELPERS 


383 


Jeffard lays the pipe aside and does not pretend 
to misunderstand. 

“ Tell me what you would like to have me do.” 

“I think you must know: find the man who 
drank of the hitter waters and went mad, and give 
him back that which you have taken from him.” 

“ Is n’t there a possibility that I can do neither ? ” 

“ I can help you to do the first, — and for the 
other I can only plead. I know what you would 
say : that the man had forfeited his right ; that he 
tried to kill you ; that by all the laws of man’s in- 
venting this money is yours. But God’s right and 
your debt to your own manhood are above all these. 
As your poor debtor, I ’m privileged to ask large 
things of you ; can’t you break the teeth of it and 
shake yourseK free of the money-dragon?” 

Jeffard is afoot, tramping a monotonous sentry 
beat between the wagon and the fire. His rejoinder 
is a question. 

“ Do you know where James Garvin is to be 
found?” 

“ I don’t, but Bartrow does.” 

“ Why did n’t he tell me ? ” 

“ Because Dick is merciful. The man is a crimi- 
nal, and you could send him to the penitentiary.” 

“ And Dick thought — and you have thought — 
that I would prosecute him. It was the natural 
inference, I suppose, — from your point of view. 
The man who would rob his partner would n’t stum- 
ble over a little thing like that. Will it help you 
to sleep the sounder if I say that vengeance is n’t 


384 THE HELPERS 

in me ? — was n’t in me even in the white heat 
of it?” 

Lansdale nods assent. “ I ’m on the asking hand, 
and any concession is grateful. If you were vindic- 
tive about it, I ’m afraid the major contention would 
be hopeless.” 

“ But as it is you do not despair ? ” 

“I am very far from despairing, Henry. You 
spoke lightly of our friendship a little while ago, 
and one time I should have agreed with you. But 
I know you better now, and the incredibility of this 
thing that you have done has been growing upon 
me. It ’s the one misshapen column in a fair temple. 
Won’t you pull it down and set up another in its 
place, — a clean-cut pillar of uprightness, which will 
harmonize with the others ? ” 

Jeffard stops short at the tree-bole, with his hand 
on Lansdale’s shoulder. 

“ It has taken me five weeks to find out why you 
consented to come afield with me,” he says. “ It 
was to say this, was n’t it ? ” 

“Just that,” says Lansdale, and his voice is the 
voice of one pleading as a mother pleads. “ Say 
you will do it, Henry ; if not for your own sake or 
mine, for the sake of that which has brought us 
together here.” 

Jeffard has turned away again, but he comes back 
at that to stand before Garvin’s advocate. 

“ It is a small thing you have asked, Lansdale,” 
he says, after a time ; “ much smaller than you 
think. The pillar is n’t altogether as crooked as it 


THE HELPERS 


385 


looks ; there is something in the perspective. You 
know how the old Greek builders used to set the 
corner column out of -the perpendicular to make it 
appear plumb. We don’t always do that ; sometimes 
we can’t do it without bringing the whole structure 
down about our ears. But in this case your critical 
eye shall be satisfied. We’ll go down to the mine 
in the morning and use Denby’s wire. If Bartrow 
can find Garvin, you shall see how easily the dragon’s 
teeth may be broken. Is that what you wanted me 
to say?” 

Lansdale’s answer is a quotation. 

“ ‘ And it came to pass, when he had made an 
end of speaking . . . that the soul of Jonathan 
was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan 
loved him as his own soul.’ I ’ve seen my reward 
and felt of it ; and yours will come a little later, — 
in a way you little dream of. Pass the tobacco, 
and let ’s have another whiff or two before we turn 
in. I ’m too acutely thankful to be sleepy.” 

For a peaceful half-hour they sit before the glow- 
ing embers, smoking placidly while their talk drifts 
hither and yon over the spent sea of boyhood and 
youth. It is a heartening half-hour, and at the end 
of it Jeffard rises to get the blankets from the 
wagon. Lansdale elects to sleep at his tree-root, 
and he is rolling himself in his blanket when Jeffard 
says : 

“ How about the presentiment ? Have we tired 
it out ? ” 

Lansdale laughs softly. “It’s gone,” he says. 


386 


THE HELPERS 


“ Perhaps it was nothing more than an upheaval of 
conscience. I ’m subject to that when I ’ve any- 
thing on my mind. Good-night, and God bless 
you, Henry.” 

And so the curtain goes down upon the summer 
night scene in the mountain-girt vaUey, with the 
two men sleeping peacefully before the fire, and the 
stars shining softly in the patch of velvety sky over- 
head. The midnight ebb of the snow-fed stream 
has set in, and the throbbing roll of the water drum 
is muffled. The fire burns low. The whispering 
leaves are stiUed, and the wind slipping down from 
the snow coifs sinks to a sigh. The pinions of the 
night are folded, and darkness and murmurous silence 
wrap the mantle of invisibility around the camp in 
the glade. 


CHAPTER XXXIV 


It is the gray dawn that lifts the curtain, and in 
the little glade where the two men slept there are 
three figures, dim and ghostly in the morning’s 
twilight. Two of them are afoot, heavy-eyed and 
weary, tramping a slow-paced beat on the margin 
of the tumbling stream. The third is a still shape 
lying blanket-covered beside the wagon. 

Tell me about it, Denby,” says one of the 
watchers, and his voice breaks in the sajdng of it. 
“ I think I can bear it now. How did it happen ? ” 

The master of men shakes his head. “ I can’t 
tell you anything more than the bald fact, Jeffard. 
I rode down the trail ahead of Higgins, and should 
have forded the creek here, only I didn’t want to 
disturb you two. I went on to the bridge, and in 
the act of crossing he ran down the bank on' this 
side, calling to me to go back. It was too late. I 
had barely time to get free of the stirrups when we 
were into it, — the two of us and the horse. It is n’t 
more than three or four feet deep, as you know, but 
I knew it meant death if we went into the mill tail 
below. I lost my grip and was gone when he grap- 
pled me. I don’t know yet how he came to save my 
life and lose his own.” 

“ It was to be,” says Jeffard, brokenly. “ When 


388 


THE HELPERS 


I reached you he was holding you up with one hand 
and clinging to the bridge stringer with the other. 
His weight and yours with J:he rush of the water 
had pushed the timber down, and his head was 
under.” 

Two other turns they make, and then Jeffard 
says, with awe in his voice, “ He knew about it 
beforehand, Denby,” and he tells Lansdale’s dream. 

Denby hears him through without interrupting, 
but at the end of it he says, gently : “It was n’t a 
dream. Higgins was overdue with the team from 
Aspen, and I went out to see what had become of 
him. I passed here on my way up the trail about 
nine o’clock, and you were both asleep then. I had 
crossed by the lower ford and found it pretty bad, 
so I turned back from here and rode down to see 
if the bridge was aU right. He saw me and heard 
me.” 

Jeffard’s gesture is of uncon vincement. 

“ That accounts for part of it,” he says ; “ but 
I shaU always believe he foresaw his death and the 
manner of it.” 

After that they pace up and down in silence 
again, treading out the sorrowful watch until day- 
light is fully come, bringing with it a team from the 
mine and men to do what remains to be done. The 
two stand apart until the men have done their 
office, falling in to walk softly behind the wagon 
on the short journey down the valley to the mine 
settlement. On the way, Jeffard accounts for him- 
self briefly. 


THE HELPERS 


389 


“ He was one of the two best friends I had in the 
world,” he says. “ I had him out on a camping 
holiday for his health, and he was gaining day by 
day. We were coimting upon dropping in on you 
this morning, and now ” — 

“ I know,” says the master. “ He gave his life 
for mine, and it gets pretty near to me, too.” And 
thereafter they keep step with heads bowed and 
eyes downcast, as those in whom sorrow has mur- 
dered speech ; and the bellowing stream at the trail- 
side thunders a requiem for its victim. 

The setting sun is crimsoning the eastern snow 
caps while they are burying him on the plateau 
above the mine settlement. An hour later, the 
master of men and the master of the mine are met 
together in the log cabin opposite the great gray 
dump ; in the cabin builded by Garvin, but which 
now serves as the office of the superintendent of 
the Midas. Sorrow still sits between, and Denby 
would give place to it. 

“ Put it olf till to-morrow, J effard,” he says. 
“ Neither of us is fit to talk business to-night.” 

“ No, it must n’t be put off. I gave him my pro- 
mise, and I mean to make it good while time 
serves. Have you any one here who is competent 
to witness a legal document?” 

“ Yes ; Halsey is a notary public.” 

“ Good. Sit down at that desk and draw up a 
writing transferring my interest in the Midas to 
Stephen Elliott and Richard Bartrow, trustees.” 

“ What ’s that ? Trustees for whom ? ” 


390 


THE HELPERS 


“ For James Garvin.” 

The master of men leans back in his chair, his 
eyes narrowing and the little frown of perplexity 
radiating fan-like above them. 

“ Jelfard, do you mean to say that you are going 
to step aside in favor of the man who tried to kill 
you?” 

“You may put it that way, if you choose. It 
would have been done long ago if I had been able to 
find the man.” 

“And you stepped into the breach a year ago 
and secured his property for him because he had 
put himself out of the running and could n’t? 
You’ve touched me on the raw, Jeffard. It’s my 
business to size people up, and you have fairly out- 
flanked me. A blind man might have seen the 
drift of it, but I did n’t ; I thought you had robbed 
him. Why did n’t you give it a name ? ” 

“ I had no thought of concealment until you 
warned me. Garvin was a criminal in the eye of 
the law, and the least I could do for him was to 
turn the tide of public opinion in his favor.” 

WeU, you did it ; but just the same, you might 
have passed the word to me. It would n’t have 
gone any farther, and I should have felt a good bit 
easier in my mind.” 

“ Perhaps ; but you will pardon me if I say that I 
was n’t considering you in the matter. I knew bet- 
ter than to defeat my own end. If I had told you 
the truth at the time, you would not have believed 
it ; you would have struck hands with your own 


THE HELPERS 


391 


theory that Garvin had attempted to rob me, and 
you would have talked and acted accordingly.” 

“ What makes you say I would n’t have believed 
the truth ? ” 

“It would have been merely a declaration of 
intention at the time, and you would have said that 
it did n’t square with human nature as you know it. 
Bartrow knew, and he went over to the majority. 
But that is neither here nor there. W^ill you draw 
up the writing ? ” 

Denby goes to the desk and writes out the 
transfer, following Jeffard’s dictation. When it is 
signed and acknowledged, Jeffard slips his final 
anchor. 

“ I presume you will want to make a new operat- 
ing contract with the trustees, or with Garvin, and 
in that case you will want to cancel the old one. 
I have n’t my copy of it with me, but I ’ll mail it to 
you when I get back to Denver.” 

Denby is making a pretense of rummaging in the 
pigeonholes of the desk to cover a small struggle 
which has nothing to do with the superintendent’s 
files. When the struggle is fought to a finish, he 
turns suddenly and holds out his hand. 

“Jeffard, that night when we wrangled it out 
up yonder on the old dump I said some things that 
I should n’t have said if you had seen fit to be a 
little franker with me. WiU you forget them? ” 

Jeffard takes the proffered hand and wrings it 
gratefully. “ Thank you for that, Denby,” he 
says ; “ it ’s timely. I feel as if I ’d like to drop 


392 


THE HELPERS 


out and turn up on some other planet. This thing 
has cost me pretty dear, one way with another.” 

“ It ’ll come out all right in the end,” asserts the 
master ; and then : “ But you must n’t forget that 
the cost of it is partly of your own incurring. It ’s 
a rare failing, but there is such a thing as being too 
close-mouthed. You Ve made out your case, after 
a fashion, and I ’m not going to appeal it ; but your 
postulate was wrong. Human nature is not as 
incredulous of good intentions as the cynics would 
make it out to be. You might have told a few of 
us without imperilling Garvin.” 

“ I meant to do it ; as I say, I did tell Bartrow 
that morning when I raced Garvin across the range 
and into Aspen. But he and every one else drew 
the other conclusion, and I was too stubborn to 
plead my own cause. The stubbornness became a 
mania with me after a time, and I had a fit of it 
no longer ago than last night. I let Lansdale die 
believing that he had argued me into promising to 
make restitution. We were coming down here to- 
day to set the thing in train, and, of course, he 
would have learned the whole truth; but for one 
night — ” 

“ For one night you would let him have the com- 
fort of believing that he had brought it about,” says 
Denby, quickly. “That wasn’t what you were 
going to say, but it ’s the truth, and you know it. 
I know the feel of it ; you ’ve reached the point 
where you can get some sort of comfort out of hold- 
ing your finger in the fire. Suppose you begin 


V 


THE HELPERS 


393 


right here and now to take a little saner view of 
things. What are your plans ? ” 

“ I haven’t any.” 

“ Are you open to an offer ? ” 

“ From you ? — yes.” 

“ Good. I ’m unlucky enough to have some min- 
ing property in Mexico, and I ’ve got to go down 
there and set it in order, or send some one to do it 
for. me. Will you go ? ” 

Jeffard’s reply is promptly acquiescent. 

“ Gladly ; if you think I am competent.” 

“ I don’t think, — I know. Can you start at 
short notice ? ” 

“ The sooner the better. I said I should like to 
drop out and turn up on some other planet : that 
will he the next thing to it.” 

From that the talk goes overland to the affairs of 
a century-old silver mine in the Chihuahuan moun- 
tains, and at the end of it Jeffard knows what is 
to he done and how he is to go about the doing of it. 
Denhy yawns and looks at his watch. 

“ It ’s hedtime,” he says. “ Shall we consider it 
settled and go over to the hunk-shack ? ” 

“ I have a letter to write,” says Jeffard. “ Don’t 
wait for me.” 

“All right. You’U find what you need in the 
desk, — top drawer on the right. Come over when 
you get ready,” and the promoter leaves his late 
owner in possession of the superintendent’s office. 

Judging from the number of false starts and torn 
sheets, the writing of the letter proves to he no easy 


394 


THE HELPERS 


matter; but it is begun, continued, and ended at 
length, and Jeffard sits back to read it over. 

“My dear Bartrow: 

“ When this reaches you, you will have had my 
telegram of to-day telling you aU there is to tell 
about Lansdale’s death. You must forgive me if I 
don’t repeat myself here. It is too new a wound — 
and too deep — to bear probing, even with a pen. 

“ What I have to say in this letter will probably 
surprise you. Last night, in our last talk together, 
Lansdale told me that you know Garvin’s where- 
abouts. Acting upon that information, I have to- 
night executed a transfer of the Midas to yourself 
and Stephen Elliott, trustees for Garvin. By agree- 
ment with Denby, I cancel my working contract with 
him, and you, or Garvin, can make another for the 
unexpired portion of the year on the same terms, — 
which is Denby ’s due. You will find the accrued 
earnings of the mine from the day of my first settle- 
ment with Denby deposited in the Denver bank in 
an account which I opened some months ago in the 
names of yourself and Elliott, trustees. Out of the 
earnings I have withheld my wages as a workman in 
the mine last winter, and a moderate charge for 
caretaking since. 

“ That is all I have to say, I think, unless I add 
that you are partly responsible for the delay in Gar- 
vin’s reinstatement. If you had trusted me suffi- 
ciently to teU me what you told Lansdale, it would 
have saved time and money, inasmuch as I have 


THE HELPERS 395 

spared neither in the effort to trace Garvin. I told 
you the truth that morning in Leadville, hut it 
seems that your loyalty was n’t quite equal to the 
strain put upon it by public rumor. I don’t blame 
you greatly. I know I had done what a man may 
to forfeit the respect of his friends. But I made 
the mistake of taking it for granted that you and 
Lansdale, and possibly one other, would still give 
me credit for common honesty, and when I found 
that you did n’t it made me bitter, and I ’ll be frank 
enough to say that I have n’t gotten over it yet.” 

The letter pauses with the little outflash of resent- 
ment, and he takes the pen to sign it. But in the 
act he adds another paragraph. 

“ That is putting it rather harshly, and just now 
I ’m not in the mood to quarrel with any one ; and 
least of aU with you. I am going away to be gone 
indefinitely, and I don’t want to give you a buffet 
by way of leave-taking. But the fact remains. If 
you can admit it and still believe that the old-time 
friendship is yet alive in me, I wish you would. 
And if you dare take word from me to Miss Elliott, 

I ’d be glad if you would say to her that my sorrow 
for what has happened is second only to hers.” 

The letter is signed, sealed, and addressed, and he 
drops it into the mail-box. The lamp is flaring in 
the night wind sifting in through the loosened chink- 
ing, and he extinguishes it and goes out to tramp 


396 


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himself weary in the little cleared space which had 
once been Garvin’s dooryard. It is a year and a 
day since he wore out the midwatch of that other 
summer night on the eve of the forthfaring from the 
valley of dry bones, and he recalls it and the im- 
passioned outburst which went to the ending of it. 
Again he turns his face toward the far-away city 
of the plain, but this time his eyes are dim when 
the reiterant thought slips into speech, “ God help 
me ! ” he says. “ How can I ever go to her and tell 
her that I have failed ! ” 


CHAPTEE XXXV 


The news of Lansdale’s death came with the 
shock of the unexpected to the dwellers in the meta- 
morphosed cabin on the upslope of Topeka Mountain, 
albeit no one of the three of them had ventured to 
hope for anything more than a reprieve as the out- 
come of the jaunt afield. But the manner of his 
death at the time when the reprieve seemed well 
assured was responsible for the shock and its sorrow- 
ful aftermath ; and if Constance grieved more than 
Bartrow or her cousin, it was only for the reason 
that the heart of compassion knows best the bitter- 
ness of infruition. 

“ It ’s a miserably comfortless saying to offer you, 
Connie, dear, but we must try to believe it is for the 
best,” said Myra, finding Constance re-reading Jef- 
fard’s telegram by the light of her bedroom lamp. 

Constance put her arms about her cousin’s neck, 
and the heart of compassion overflowed. “ ‘ For 
unto every one that hath shall be given, but from 
him that hath not shall be taken away even that 
which he hath,’ ” she sobbed. “ Of all the things 
he had set his heart upon life was the least, — was 
only the means to an end : and even that was taken 
from him.” 

“ No, not taken, Connie ; he gave it, and gave it 


398 


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freely. He did for another what his friend was 
trying to do for him.” 

At the reference to Jeffard, Constance went to 
stand before the crackling fire of fir-splinters on the 
hearth. After a time she said : “ Do you suppose 
Mr. Jefiard will come here to tell us about it ? ” 

Myra’s answer was a query. 

“ Does he know you are here ? ” 

“ No, I think not.” 

“ Then he will be more likely to go to Denver.” 

Connie’s gaze was in the fire, and she swerved 
aside from the straight path of inference. 

“ He will write to Dick,” she said. “ I should 
like to read the letter when it comes, if I may.” 

Myra promised, and so it rested ; but when Jef- 
fard’s letter came, and Bartrow had shared its 
astounding news with his wife, Myra was for rescind- 
ing her promise. 

“ I don’t know why she should n’t read it,” said 
Dick. “ She has always been more or less interested 
in him, and it will do her a whole lot of good to 
know that we were all off wrong. Jeffard’s little 
slap at me hits her, too, but she won’t mind that.” 

“ No,” said Myra ; “ I was thinking of something 
else, — something quite different.” 

“ Is it sayable ? ” 

They were sitting on the steps of the extended 
porch. The night-shift was at work in the Myriad 
below, and the rattle and clank of a dump-car com- 
ing out postponed her answer. When the clangor 
subsided she glanced over her shoulder. 


THE HELPERS 399 

^ “ She can’t hear,” said Bartrow. “ She ’s in the 
sitting-room reading to Uncle Steve.” 

“I’m not sure that it is sayable, Dick. But for 
the last two days I ’ve been wondering if we were n’t 
mistaken about something else, too, — about Connie’s 
feeling for Mr. Lansdale. She is sorry, but not 
quite in the way I expected she would be.” 

“ What has that got to do with J effard’s letter ? ” 
demanded the downright one. His transplantings 
of perspicacity were not yet sufficiently acclimated 
to bloom out of season. 

“ Nothing, perhaps.” She gave it up as unspeak- 
able, and went to the details of the business affair. 
“ Shall you tell Garvin at once?” 

“ Sure.” 

“ How fortunate it is that he and Uncle Stephen 
came in to-day.” 

“Yes. They were staked for another month, and 
I didn’t look for them until they were driven in 
for more grub. But Garvin says the old man is 
about played out. He ’s too old. He can’t stand 
the pick and shovel in this altitude at his age. 
^Ye 11 have to talk him out of it and run him back 
to Denver some way or other.” 

“ Can’t you make this trusteeship an excuse ? If 
Garvin needed a guardian at first, he will doubtless 
need one now.” 

Bartrow nodded thoughtfully. Another car was 
coming out, and he waited until the crash of the 
falling ore had come and gone. 

“ Jeffard knew what he was about all the time; 


400 


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knew it when he wrote this letter just as well as 
he did when he shouldered the curse of it to keep 
a possible lynching party from hanging Garvin. 
That ’s why he put it in trust. He knew Garvin 
had gone daft and thrown it away once, and he was 
afraid he might do it again.” 

“ Will he ? ” asked the wife. 

“ I guess not. I believe he has learned his lesson. 
More than that, Jim ’s as soft as mush ou the side 
next the old man. If I can make out to tie Uncle 
Steve’s welfare up in the deal, Garvin will come to 
the front hke a man.” 

“ Where is Garvin now ? ” 

“ He is down at the bunk-house.” 

Myra rose. “ I suppose you want to get it over 
with. Let me have the letter, if you won’t need it.” 

“ What are you going to do ? ” 

“ Carry Connie off to her room and keep her busy 
with this while you and Uncle Stephen fight it out 
with the new millionaire,” she said. “ I don’t envy 
you your part of it.” 

Bartrow laughed, and the transplantings put forth 
a late shoot. 

“Come to think of it, I don’t know as I envy 
you yours,” he retorted. “ She ’s aU broke up about 
Uncle Steve’s health and Lansdale’s death now, and 
she ’ll have a fit when she finds out how she has been 
piling it on to Jefiard when he did n’t deserve it.” 

It was an hour later, and the day-men smoking 
on the porch of the boarding-house had gone to bed, 
when the husband and wife met again midway of 


THE HELPERS 


401 


the path leading up from the shaft -house of the 
Myriad to the metamorphosed cabin. Bartrow had 
walked down to the boarding-house with Garvin, 
and Myra’s impatience had sent her down the path 
to meet him. Dick gave her his arm up the steep 
ascent, and drew her to a seat on the lowest of the 
porch steps. 

“ Where is Connie ? ” he inquired, anticipating an 
avalanche of questions, out of which he would have 
to dig his way without fear of interruption. 

“ She is with her father. Begin at the beginning, 
and tell me all about it. What did Garvin say? 
Is he going to be sensible ? ” 

“ There is n’t so much to tell as there might be,” 
Dick said, smothering a mighty prompting to tell 
the major fact first. “ Garvin took it very sensibly, 
though a body could see that the lamplight was a 
good bit too strong for his eyes. He had to try 
three or four times before he could speak, and then 
all he could say was ‘ Thirds, Steve, thirds.’ ” 

“ ‘ Thirds ? ’ What did he mean by that ? ” 

Bartrow hesitated for a moment, as a gunner who 
would make sure of the priming before he jerks the 
lanyard. 

“ Did it ever occur to you that any one else besides 
Garvin and J eff ard might be interested in the 
Midas?” 

“ Why, no ! ” 

“ It did n’t to me. I don’t know why, but I 
never thought of it, though I knew well enough that 
Jim never in all his life went prospecting on a grub- 


) 


402 THE HELPERS 

stake of kis own providing. He did n’t that summer 
three years ago when he drove the tunnel on the 
Midas.” 

Myra’s lips were dry, and she had to moisten 
them to say, “ Who was it, Dick ? ” 

“ Who should it be but our good old Uncle Steve ? 
Of course, he ’d forgotten all about it, and there he 
stood, wringing Garvin’s hand and trying to con- 
gratulate him ; and Jim hanging on to the back of 
his chair and saying, ‘ Thirds, Steve, I say thirds.’ 
Garvin made him understand at last, and then the 
old man melted down into his chair and put his face 
in his hands. When he took it out again it was to 
look up and say, ‘ You ’re right, Jim ; of course it ’s 
thirds,’ and then he asked me where Jeffard was.” 

Myra’s voice was unsteady, but she made shift to 
say what there was to be said ; and Bartrow went 
on. 

“ After a bit we got down to business and straight- 
ened things out. A third interest in the Midas is 
to be set apart for Jeffard, to be rammed down his 
throat when we find him, whether he will or no. 
Uncle Steve will go back to Denver and set up 
housekeeping again ; and Garvin, — but that ’s the 
funny part of the whole shooting-match. Garvin 
refuses to touch a dollar of the money as owner ; in- 
sists on leaving it in trust, just as it is now ; and 
made me sit down there and then and write his 
will.” 

An outcoming car of ore drowned Myra’s exclama- 
tion of surprise. 


THE HELPERS 


403 


“ Fact,” said Bartrow. “ He reserves an income 
to be paid to him at Uncle Steve’s discretion and 
mine, and at bis death his third goes, — to whom, 
do you suppose ? ” 

“ Indeed, I can’t imagine, — imless it is to Con- 
nie.” 

“ Not much ! It ’s to be held in trust for Mar- 
garet Gannon’s children.” 

“For Margaret, — why, she has n’t any children ! 
And besides, he does n’t know her ! ” 

“ Don’t you fool yourself. He knows she has n’t 
any children, but he ’s living in hopes. I told you 
there was something between them from the way 
Garvin turned in and nursed the old blacksmith 
before Margaret came. You wouldn’t believe it, 
because they both played the total-stranger act ; but 
that was one time when I got ahead of you, was n’t 
it?” 

“ Yes ; go on.” 

“Well, I made out the will, ‘I, James Garvin, 
being of sound mind,’ and so on ; and Uncle Steve 
and I witnessed it. But on the way down to the 
bunk-shanty just now I pinned Garvin up against 
the wall and made him teU me why. He knew 
Margaret when she was in the Bijou, and asked her 
to marry him. She was honest enough even then to 
refuse him. It made me want to weep when I re- 
membered how she had been mixed up with Jeffard.” 

Myra was silent for a full minute, and when she 
spoke it was out of the depths of a contrite heart. 

“ I made you believe that, Dick, against your 


c 


404 THE HELPERS 

will; and you were right, after all. Mr. Jeffard 
was only trying to help Connie’s poor people through 
Margaret, though why he should do that when he 
was withholding a fortune from Uncle Stephen is 
still a mystery.” 

“ That is as simple as twice two,” said the hus- 
band. “ Did n’t I tell you ? Garvin had no occa- 
sion to tell him who his grub-staker was in the first 
place, and no chance to do it afterward. Jeffard 
did n’t know, — does n’t know yet.” 

Myra went silent again, this time for more than a 
minute. 

“ I have learned something, too, Dick ; but I am 
not sure that I ought to tell it,” she said, after the 
interval. 

“ I can wait,” said Bartrow cheerfully. “ I ’ve 
had a full meal of double-back-action surprises as it 
is.” 

“ This is n’t a surprise ; or it would n’t be if we 
had n’t been taking too much for granted. I tolled 
Connie off to her room with the letter, as I said I 
would ; and she — she had a fit, as you prophesied.” 

“ Of course,” says Dick. “ It hurts her more 
than anything to make a miscue on the charitable 
side.” 

“Yes, but”— 

“ But what ? ” 

“ I ’ll teU you sometime, Dick, but not now. It 
is too pitiful.” 

“ I can wait,” said Bartrow again ; and his lack of 
curiosity drove her into the thick of it. 


' \ 


THE HELPERS 


405 


“ If you knew you ’d want to do something, — as 
I do, only I don’t know how. Is n’t it pretty clear 
that Mr. Jeffard cares a great deal for Connie?” 

“ Oh, I don’t know about that. What makes you 
think so?” says the obvious one. 

“ A good many little things ; some word or two 
that Margaret has let slip, for one of them. How 
otherwise would you explain his eagerness to help 
Connie ? ” 

“ On general principles, I guess. She ’s plenty 
good enough to warrant it.” 

“ Yes, but it was ri’t ‘ general principles ’ in Mr. 
Jeffard’s case. He is in love with Connie, and ” — 

“ And she does n’t care for him. Is that it ? ” 

“ No, it is n’t it ; she does care for him. I fairly 
shocked it out of her with the letter, and that is why 
I ought n’t to tell it, even to you. It is too pitiful !” 

Bartrow shook his head in cheerful density. 
“ Your philosophy ’s too deep for me. If they are 
both of one mind, as you say, I don’t see where the 
pity comes in. Jeffard isn’t haK good enough for 
her, of course; he made a bally idiot of himself a 
year ago. But if she can forget that, I ’m sure we 
ought to.” 

“ I was n’t thinking of that. But don’t you see 
how impossible this Midas tangle makes it? He 
won’t take his third, you may be very sure of that ; 
and when he finds out that Connie has a daughter’s 
share in one of the other thirds, it will seal his lips 
for all time. People would say that he gave up his 
share only to marry hers.” 


T 


406 THE HELPERS 

Bartrow got upon his feet and helped her to rise. 
“ You ’ll take cold sitting out here in the ten-thou- 
sand-foot night,” he said; and on the top step of 
the porch-flight she had his refutation of her latest 
assertion. 

“ You say people would talk. Does n’t it strike 
you that Jeffard is the one man in a thousand who 
will mount and ride regardless ? — who will smile 
and snap his fingers at public opinion ? That ’s just 
what he ’s been doing all along, and he ’ll do it again 
if he feels like it. Let ’s go in and congratulate the 
good old uncle while we wait.” 


CHAPTER XXXVI 


The day train from the south ran into the early 
winter twilight at Acequia, and into the night at 
Littleton ; and the arc stars of the city, resplendent 
with frosty aureoles, were brightly scintillant when 
Jeffard gave his hand-bag to the porter and passed 
out through the gate at the Union Depot. By tele- 
graphic prearrangement, he was to meet Denby in 
Denver to make his report upon the Chihuahuan 
silver mine ; but when he made inquiry at the hotel 
he was not sorry to find that the promoter had not 
yet arrived. It is a far cry from Santa Rosaha to 
Denver ; as far as from the beginning of the seven- 
teenth century to the end of the nineteenth ; and he 
was grateful for a little breathing space in which 
to synchronize himself. 

But after dinner, and a cigar burned frugally in 
the great rotunda, where the faces of all the comers 
and goers were unfamiliar, the homesickness of the 
returned exile came upon him, and he went out to 
grapple with it in the open air. Faring absently 
from street to street, with his hands thrust into his 
overcoat pockets and memory plowing its furrow 
deep in a field which had lain fallow through many 
toil-fiUed weeks, he presently found himself drifting 
by squares and street-crossings toward Capitol Hill, 


THE HELPERS 


T 

408 

and out and beyond to a broad avenue and past a 
house with a veranda in front and a deep-bayed 
window at the side. There were lights in the house, 
and an air of owner’s occupancy about the place ; 
and on the veranda a big man was tramping solidly 
up and down, with the red spark at the end of his 
cigar appearing and disappearing as he passed and 
repassed the windows. 

Jelfard saw the man and saw him not. The 
memory-plow had gone deeper, and the winter night 
changed places with a June morning, with the sun 
shining aslant on the wide veranda, and a young 
woman in a belted house-gown with loose sleeves tip- 
toeing on the arm of a clumsy chair while she 
caught up the new growth of a climbing rose. Just 
here the plow began to tear up rootlets well-buried 
but still sensitive ; and Jeffard turned about abruptly 
and set his face cityward. 

But once again in the region of tall buildings and 
peopled sidewalks, the thought of the crowded lobby 
and the loneliness of it assailed him afresh, and 
he changed his course again, being careful to go at 
right angles to the broad avenue with its house of 
recollection. A little way beyond the peopled walks 
the church bells began to ring out clear and melodi- 
ous on the frosty air, and he remembered what the 
uncalendared journey had made him forget ; that it 
was Sunday. Pacing thoughtfully, with the transit- 
hum of the city behind him and the quiet house- 
streets ahead, and the plow still shearing the sod 
of the fallow field, he wondered if Constance Elliott 


THE HELPERS 


409 


would be among the churchgoers. It was an up- 
flash of the old cynicism which prompted the retort 
that it was improbable ; that the Christianity for 
which she stood was not found in the churches. But 
the Puritan blood in him rose up in protest at that, 
and in the rebound the open doors of a church on 
the opposite side of the way beckoned him. 

He crossed the street and entered. The organist 
was playing the voluntary, and a smart young man 
with a tuberose in his buttonhole held up the finger 
of invitation. 

“ Not too far forward,” Jeffard whispered ; but 
the young man seemed not to have heard, since he 
led the way up the broad centre aisle to a pew far 
beyond the strangers’ precinct. 

The pew was unoccupied, and Jeffard went deep 
into it, meaning to be well out of the way of later 
comers. But when the finale of the voluntary 
merged by an agreeable modulation into the key 
of the opening hymn, the other sittings in the pew 
were still untaken, and Jefiard congratulated him- 
self. There be times when partial isolation, even in 
a sparsely filled church, is grateful; and the fur- 
rows in the fallow field were stiU smoking from their 
recent upturning. 

Jefiard stood in the hymn-singing, and bowed his 
head at the prayer, not so much in reverence as in 
deference to time, place, and encompassments. Since 
the shearing of the plowshare filled his ears, the 
words of the beseeching were lost to him, but he was 
sufficiently alive to his surroundings to know that 


410 


THE HELPERS 


the pew filled quietly at the beginning of the prayer ; 
and sufficiently reserved afterward to deny himself 
so much as a glance aside at his nearest neighbor. 

How long he would have sat staring abstractedly 
at the pictured window beyond the choir must re- 
main a matter for conjecture. The minister had 
given out the’ psalm, and Jeffard stood up with the 
others. Whereupon he saw of necessity that his 
neighbor was a woman, so small that the trimmings 
on her modest walking hat came barely to his 
shoulder ; saw this, and a moment later was look- 
ing down into a pair of steadfast gray eyes, deep- 
welled and eloquent, as she handed him an open 
book with the leaf turned down. 

He took the book mechanically, with mute thanks, 
but afterward he saw and heard nothing for which 
the evensong in St. C3rrirs-in-the-Desert could justly 
be held responsible, being lifted to a seventh heaven 
of ecstasy far more real than that depicted in 
the glowing periods of the preacher. He made the 
most of it, knowing that it would presently vanish, 
and that he should have to come to earth again. 
And not by whispered word or sign of recognition 
would he mar the beatitude of it. Only once, when 
he put aside the book she had given him and looked 
on with her, did he suffer himself to do more than to 
enjoy silently and to the full the sweet pleasure of 
her nearness. 

Under the circumstances it was not singular that 
his by-glancings did not go beyond her; and that 
Dick Bartrow’s hearty handclasp and stage-whisper 


THE HELPERS 


411 


greeting at the close of the service should take him 
by surprise. This he endured as one in a dream ; 
also the introduction to a radiant young woman with 
whom Bartrow presently led the way into the stream 
of decorously jostling outgoers pouring down the 
great aisle. That left Jeffard to follow with the 
small one ; and he was still groping his way through 
the speechless ravishment of it when they overtook 
the Bartrows on the sidewalk. Dick promptly 
broke the spell. 

“ Well, well ! ” he began. “ Nothing surprises me 
any more ; otherwise I should say you are about the 
last man on top of earth that I ’d expect to run up 
against in church. Don’t say ‘ same here,’ because 
I do go when I ’m made to. Where in the forty- 
five states and odd territories did you drop from ? ” 

“ Not from any one of them,” laughed Jeffard ; 
and Myra remarked that Connie’s hand was still on 
his arm. “ I am just up from Old Mexico.” 

“ And you made a straight shoot for a church — 
for our church and our pew. Good boy! You 
knew right where to find us on a Sunday evening, 
did n’t you ? ” 

Jeffard laughed again. Since a time unremem- 
bered of him it had not been so easy to laugh and be 
glad. 

“ Don’t believe him, Mrs. Barti'ow,” he protested. 
“ My motive was a little mixed, I ’ll confess, but it 
was altogether better than that. I was passing, and 
it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen the inside of 
an American church for a long time.” 


412 


THE HELPERS 


“ Or of any other kind, I ’ll be bound,” Bartrow 
amended ; and then, in a spirit of sheer ruthlessness ; 
“ Why don’t you say something, Connie ? Call him 
down and make him tell the truth about it.” 

“ You don’t give any one a chance to say any- 
thing,” retorts the quiet one, with a summer-light- 
ning flash of the old mock-antagonism. And then to 
Jeflard : “We are all very glad to see you again, 
Mr. Jeffard. Will you be in town long?” 

Bartrow took the words out of his mouth and made 
answer for him. 

“ Of course he will ; he is going to settle down 
and be home-folks — are n’t you, Jeffard? Fall in 
and let ’s walk to where we can wrestle it out without 
freezing. It’s colder than ordinary charity stand- 
ing here.” 

Now the way to his hotel lay behind him and Jef- 
fard hesitated. Whereupon Bartrow turned with a 
laugh derisive. 

“ Come on, you two. Have you forgotten the for- 
mula, J effard ? I ’U prompt you, and you can say it 
over after me. ‘ Miss EUiott, may I have the plea- 
sure of seeing you ’ — ” 

Myra pounced upon the mocker and dragged him 
away ; and Constance cut in swiftly. 

“You must n’t mind what Dick says. He calls 
going to church ‘ dissipation,’ and he is never quite 
responsible afterward. Won’t you go home with us, 
Mr. Jeffard ? ” 

Jeffard murmured something about a hotel and an 
appointment, but he had been waiting only for an 


THE HELPERS 


413 


intimation that he was forgiven. So they went on 
together, walking briskly, as the frosty night de- 
manded, but they were not able to overtake the twain 
in advance. For a time they were both tongue-tied, 
and for a wonder it was the man who first rose supe- 
rior to the entanglements of memory. But he was 
careful to choose the safest of commonplaces for a 
topic. They were ascending Capitol Hill, and by 
way of a beginning he said, “Are you living in 
this part of the city now ? ” 

“ Yes ; in the old place on Colfax. Dick ran across 
the owner in California last autumn and bought it.” 

“ It is a very pleasant place,” J effard ventured, 
still determined to keep on ground of the safest. 

“ Do you know it ? ” she said, quickly. 

“ Oh, yes ; — er — that is, I know where it is. I 
passed it one morning a long time ago.” 

“ While we were living there ? ” 

“Yes.” 

Silence again for one entire square and part of 
another. Then she said, “ How did you know it was 
our house ? ” 

He laid hold of his courage and told the truth. 
“ I met your father a block or two down the avenue 
and I was hoping I might come upon the place where 
you lived. I found it. You were on the veranda, 
tying up the new shoots of a climbing rose.” 

“ My ‘ Marechal Niel,’ ” she said. “ It is dead 
now ; they let it freeze last winter.” 

He held his peace for a time, but the rejoinder 
strove for speech, and had it, finally. 


414 


THE HELPERS 


“ The memory of it lives,” he said. “ I shall always 
see you as I saw you that morning, whatever comes 
between. You had on some sort of a dress that re- 
minded me of the old Greek draperies, and you were 
standing on the arm of a big chair.” 

They were at the gate, and she let him open it for 
her. Bartrow and Myra were waiting for them at 
the veranda step. He realized that the ground was 
no longer safe, and would have taken his leave at the 
door. But Dick protested vigorously. 

“ No, you don’t — drop out again like a ship in a 
fog. We ’ve been laying for you. Uncle Steve and 
I, ever since you absconded last summer, and you 
don’t get away this time without taking your medi- 
cine. Kun him in there, Connie, and hang on to 
him while I go get my slippers and a cigar.” 

“ There ” was the cozy library, with a soft-coal fire 
burning cheerily in the grate, and the book-lined 
walls inviting enough to beckon any homeless one. 
But Jeffard was far beyond any outreaching of en- 
compassments inviting or repellent. Constance drew 
up a chair for him before the fire, but he stood at the 
back of it and looked down upon her. 

“ Miss EUiott, there is something that I should like 
to tell you about — if it is far enough in the past,” 
he said, when they were alone. 

She was sitting with clasped hands, and there was 
a look in her eyes in the swift upglancing that he 
could not fathom. So he waited for her to give him 
leave. 

“ Is it about Mr. Lansdale ? ” she asked. 


THE HELPERS 


416 


“ Yes. I was with him up to the last, and I 
thought that — that you might like to know what I 
can tell you.” 

She gave him liberty, and he told the story of 
the jaunt afield, dwelling chiefiy on the day-to-day 
improvement in Lansdale’s health, and stumbling a 
little when he came to speak of their last evening 
together. 

“ It was a hard blow for me,” he said, at the end 
of it, and his voice was low and unsteady with emo- 
tion. “ You know what had gone before — what I 
had lost and could n’t regain ; and having failed at 
all points I had hoped to succeed in this : to bring 
him back to you sound and weU. And when the 
possibility was fairly within reach it was taken out 
of my hands forever.” 

She was silent for a little time, fighting a sharp 
battle with reticence new-born and masterful. When 
she spoke it was as one who is constrained to walk 
with bare feet in a thorny path of frankness. 

“ To bring him back to me, you say ; and in your 
letter to Dick you said that your sorrow was second 
only to mine. Was he not your friend, as well as 
mine ? ” 

“ I loved him,” said Jeff aid, simply ; “ but not as 
you did.” 

Again the struggle was upon her, and for a mo- 
ment she thought that the sound of Dick’s returning 
footsteps would be the signal of a blessed release. 
But the heart of sincerity would not be denied. 

“ Let there be no more misurtderstandings,” she 


i 


416 


THE HELPERS 


said, bravely. “ We have all wronged you so deeply 
that you have a right to know the truth. Mr. Lans- 
dale was my friend — as he was yours.” 

‘‘But he meant to be more,” JefPard persisted — 
“ and if he had come back with the courage of health 
to help him say it, you would not have denied him.” 

She made a little gesture of dissent. 

“ His health had nothing to do with it. And — 
and he said it before he went away.” 

Jelfard smiled. “You have halved the bitter- 
ness of it for me — as you would have lessened my 
reward if I had succeeded in bringing him back 
alive and well. My motive was mixed, as most 
human promptings are, — I can see that now, — 
but the better part of it was a desire to prove to 
you that I could do it for your sake. My debt to 
you is so large that nothing short of self-effacement 
can ever discharge it.” 

“ How can you say that ! ” she burst out. 
“ W as n’t I one of the three who ought to have be- 
lieved in you ? — the one who promised and failed 
and made it harder for you at every turn ? You 
owe me nothing but scorn.” 

He ccgitradicted her gravely. “ I owe you every- 
thing that has been saved out of the wreck of the 
man who once sat beside you in the theatre and 
found fault with the world for his own shortcom- 
ings. You are remorseful now because you think 
you misjudged me; but you must believe me when 
I tell you that it was my love for you that saved 
me, at the end of the ends, — that kept me from 


THE HELPERS 


417 


doing precisely what you thought I had done. It 
was a fearful temptation. Garvin had fairly tossed 
the thing into the abyss.” 

“ I know ; but it was only a temptation, and you 
did not yield to it.” 

“ No ; I was able to put it aside in the strength 
born of four words of yours. At a time when I 
had forgotten God and so was willing to think 
that He had forgotten me, you said ‘ I believe in 
you.’ You remember it ? ” 

She nodded assent, looking up with shining eyes 
to say, “ Don’t make me ashamed that I had n’t the 
strength to go on believing in you.” 

“Don’t say that. You have nothing to regret. 
My silence was the price of Garvin’s safety, at first, 
and I knew what the cost would be when I deter- 
mined to pay it. Later on the fault was mine ; but 
then I found that I had unconsciously been counting 
upon blind loyalty; yours, and Dick’s, and Lans- 
dale’s ; — counting upon it after I had done every- 
thing to make it impossible. I had told Dick in 
the beginning, and I tried to tell Lansdale. Dick 
wanted to believe in me, — has wanted to all along, 
I think, — but Lansdale had drawn his own con- 
clusions, and he made my explanation fit them. It 
hurt, and I gave place to bitterness.” 

“And yet you would have saved him for — 
for — ” 

“ For that which I could n’t have myself. Yes ; 
but you know the motive.” 

She met his gaze with a new light shining in the 


418 


THE HELPERS 


steadfast eyes. “I am not worthy,” she said, 
softly ; and he went quickly to stand beside her. 

“You are worthy; worthy of the best that any 
man can give you, Constance. How little I have 
to offer you, beyond a love that was strong enough 
to stand aside for the sake of your happiness, you 
know. Ever since that afternoon when you strove 
with me for my own soul I ’ve been living on your 
compassion, and it is very sweet — but I want 
more. May I hope to win more — in time ? ” 

She shook her head, and his heart stopped beat- 
ing. But it came alive again with a tumultuous 
bound at the words of the soft-spoken reply. 

“You won it long ago, so long that I’ve for- 
gotten when and how. And it ’s strong, too, like 
yours. I ’ve tried hard enough to starve it, but it 
has lived — lived on nothing.” 

She was sitting in a low willow rocker, and the 
distance between them was altogether impossible. 
So he went down on one knee and put his arms 
about her ; and but for his manhood would have put 
his face in her bosom and wept. 

“ Do you really mean that, Constance ? ” he said, 
when he had drunk his fill from the deep weUs in 
the loving eyes. 

“ I do.” 

“In spite of what you believed I had done to 
Garvin, and of what you believed I was capable of 
doing with Margaret ? ” 

“ In spite of everything. Was n’t it dreadful ? ” 

“ It was — ” There was no superlative strong 


THE HELPERS 


419 


enough, though he sought for it painfully and with 
tears. “ God help me, sweetheart, I believe I shall 
go mad with the joy of it.” And having said that, 
speech forsook him, and the silence that is golden 
came between. After a while she broke it to say ; 

“ Dick is good, is n’t he? — to be so long finding 
his slippers and the cigar.” 

“Dick is a man and a brother. I wonder if 
we can persuade him to give me a place on the 
Myriad.” 

“ You would n’t take it.” 

“ Why would n’t I ? ” 

“ Because you own an imdivided third of a richer 
mine than the Little Myriad, and — and you are 
going to marry another third,” she said, with sweet 
audacity. 

There was a hassock convenient, and he drew it 
up to sit at her feet. 

“ Break it as gently as you can,” he entreated. 
“ My cup is too full to hold much more. Besides, 
I ’ve been in Mexico for the last three months, and 
nothing happens there.” 

“ It ’s the Midas,” she explained, beginning in 
the midst. “ You saved it for Garvin, but he was 
only a half -owner.” 

“ And the other ? ” 

“Was my father. When it came to the appor- 
tionment they both said ‘ thirds,’ and that is what 
poppa and Dick are waiting to say to you now.” 

He found his feet rather unsteadily. 

“ I can’t take it,” he said ; “ you know I can’t. 


420 


THE HELPERS 


It would be too much like taking a reward for an 
act of simple justice. Moreover, I have my reward, 
and it is n’t to be spoken of in the same day with 
any Midas of them all. I ’ll go and tell them so.” 

She rose and stood beside him, lifting the loving 
eyes to his. The soft glow of the firelight made a 
golden aureole of the red-brown hair, and the sweet 
lips were tremulous. 

“ If you must, Henry. But loving-kindness is n’t 
always in giving and serving and relinquishing. 
My father has his ideal of justice, too, and so has 
James Garvin. But for you, they say, the Midas 
would never have been found, or, having been 
found, would straightway have been lost again. I 
know the money is nothing to you, — to us two, who 
have so much ; but won’t yt)u make a little conces- 
sion, a little sacrifice of pride, — for their sakes, 
Henry ? ” 

He took her face between his hands and bent to 
kiss the lips of pleading. 

“Not for their sakes, nor for all the world be- 
side, my beloved ; but always and always for yours. 
Come ; let us go together.” 


R D- 43i 



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